TEN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES  NO.  39 

Edited  by  E.  Haldeman-Jullna 

A  Guide  to  Aristotle 

Will  Durant,  Ph.D. 


i 


HALDEM  AN- JULIUS  COMPANY 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


I 


Copyright,  1923 
Hal de man- Julius  Company. 


90  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

fers  a  certain  changelessness  that  near  re¬ 
sembles  death.  He  lacks  that  Heraclitean  sense 
of  flux  which  justifies  the  conservative  in  be¬ 
lieving  that  all  permanent  change  is  gradual, 
but  justifies  the  radical  in  believing  that  no 
changelessness  is  permanent.  He  forgets  that 
Plato’s  communism  was  meant  only  for  the 
Slite,  the  unselfish  and  ungreedy  few;  and  he 
comes  deviously  to  a  Platonic  result  when  he 
says  that  though  property  should  be  private  its 
use  should  be  as  far  as  possible  common.  He 
does  not  see  (and  perhaps  he  could  not  be 
expected  in  his  early  day  to  see)  that  pri¬ 
vate  control  of  the  means  of  production  was 
stimulating  and  salutary  only  when  these 
means  were  so  simple  as  to  be  purchasable 
by  any  man;  and  that  their  increasing  com¬ 
plexity  and  cost  lead  to  a  dangerous  centraliza¬ 
tion  of  ownership  and  power,  and  to  an  arti¬ 
ficial  and  finally  disruptive  inequality. 

But  after  all,  these  are  quite  inessential 
criticisms  of  what  remains  the  most  marvelous 
and  influential  system  of  thought  ever  put  to¬ 
gether  by  any  single  mind.  It  may  be  doubted 
if  any  other  thinker  has  contributed  so  much 
to  the  enlightenment  of  the  world.  Every 


90  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

fers  a  certain  changelessness  that  near  re¬ 
sembles  death.  He  lacks  that  Heraclitean  sense 
of  flux  which  justifies  the  conservative  in  be¬ 
lieving  that  all  permanent  change  is  gradual, 
but  justifies  the  radical  in  believing  that  no 
changelessness  is  permanent.  He  forgets  that 
Plato’s  communism  was  meant  only  for  the 
Slite,  the  unselfish  and  ungreedy  few;  and  he 
comes  deviously  to  a  Platonic  result  when  he 
says  that  though  property  should  be  private  its 
use  should  be  as  far  as  possible  common.  He 
does  not  see  (and  perhaps  he  could  not  be 
expected  in  his  early  day  to  see)  that  pri¬ 
vate  control  of  the  means  of  production  was 
stimulating  and  salutary  only  when  these 
means  were  so  simple  as  to  be  purchasable 
by  any  man;  and  that  their  increasing  com¬ 
plexity  and  cost  lead  to  a  dangerous  centraliza¬ 
tion  of  ownership  and  power,  and  to  an  arti¬ 
ficial  and  finally  disruptive  inequality. 

But  after  all,  these  are  quite  inessential 
criticisms  of  what  remains  the  most  marvelous 
and  influential  system  of  thought  ever  put  to¬ 
gether  by  any  single  mind.  It  may  be  doubted 
if  any  other  thinker  has  contributed  so  much 
to  the  enlightenment  of  the  world.  Every 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

WILL  DURANT,  PH.  D. 

Director,  Labor  Temple  School,  New  York  City, 
Late  Instructor  in  Philosophy,  Columbia  University. 
Author  of  “Philosophy  and  the  Social  Problem,” 
“A  Guide  to  Plato,”  etc. 


t 


TABLE  OP  CONTENTS 


Page 

I.  The  Historical  Background .  6 

II.  The  Work  of  Aristotle .  15 

III.  The  Foundation  of  Logic . 23 

IV.  The  Organization  of  Science . 32 

1.  Greek  Science  before  Aristotle . 32 

2.  Aristotle  as  a  Naturalist . A.  38 

3.  The  Foundation  of  Biology . 41 

▼.  Metaphysics  and  the  Nature  of  God..  47 
YI.  Psychology  and  the  Nature  of  Art...  52 

VII.  Ethics  and  the  Nature  of  Happiness..  56 
VIII.  Politics  .  66 

1.  Communism  and  Conservatism. . . .  66 

2.  Marriage  and  Education . 73 

3.  Democracy  and  Aristocracy . 79 

DL  Criticism  . 85 

X.  Later  Life  and  Death . 93 


A  WORD  TO  THE  READER 

The  student  -who  has  come  to  philosophy  un¬ 
der  the  spur  of  Plato’s  eloquence  will  need  some 
encouragement  to  face  the  more  practical  and 
prosaic  work  of  Aristotle.  If  he  finds  the  fol¬ 
lowing  essay  difficult  and  unattractive,  let  him 
reflect  that  Aristotle’s  is  almost  the  most  ab¬ 
stract  and  obscure  of  all  the  great  philosophies; 
and  that  only  the  exigencies  of  logical  and 
chronological  sequence  have  led  us  to  study 
him  before  mastering  Simpler  systems.  Aris¬ 
totle  is  hard  to  grasp  because  his  work  is  so 
varied  and  manifold  that  no  centralizing  unity 
can  be  found  to  co-ordinate  it  for  easier  com¬ 
prehension.  Nor  is  there  in  his  work  any  en¬ 
thralling  drama  of  passionate^ reform;  he  is  a 
man  of  the  world  who  has  become  almost  recon¬ 
ciled  to  the  eternity  of  human  imperfections. 
The  author  has  spared  neither  time  nor  labor 
to  make  out  under  the  mummy-like  mass  of 
lecture  notes  in  which  Aristotle  has  come  down 
to  us,  the  features  of  the  living  man;  but  he 
is  very  much  afraid  that  he  has  failed. 

W.  D. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 


I.  THE  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND 

Aristotle  was  born  at  Stagira,  a  Macedonian 
city  some  two  hundred  miles  to  the  north  of 
Athens,  in  the  year  384  B.  C.  His  father  was 
friend  and  physician  to  Amyntas,  King  of 
Macedon  and  grandfather  of  Alexander.  Aris¬ 
totle  himself  seems  to  have  become  a  member 
of  the  great  medical  fraternity  of  Asclepiads. 
He  was  brought  up  in  the  odor  of  medicine  as 
many  later  philosophers  were  brought  up  in 
the  odor  of  sanctity;  he  had  every  opportunity 
and  encouragement  to  develop  a  scientific  bent 
of  mind;  he  was  prepared  from  the  beginning 
to  become  the  founder  of  science. 

We  have  a  choice  of  stories  for  his  youth. 
One  narrative  represents  him  as  squandering 
his  patrimony  in  riotous  living,  joining  the 
army  to  avoid  starvation,  returning  to  Stagira 
to  practice  medicine,  and  going  to  Athens  at 
the  age  of  thirty  to  study  philosophy  under 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  96 

Arrived  at  Chalets,  Aristotle  fell  ill;  Diogenes 
Laertius  tells  us  that  the  old  philosopher,  in 
utter  disappointment  with  the  turn  of  all  things 
against  him,  committed  suicide  by  drinking 
hemlock. 1  However  induced,  his  illness  proved 
fatal;  and  a  few  months  after  leaving  Athens 
(322  B.  C.)  the  lonely  Aristotle  died. 

In  the  same  year,  and  at  the  same  age,  sixty* 
two,  Demosthenes,  greatest  of  Alexander’s 
enemies,  drank  poison.  Within  twelve  months 
Greece  had  lost  her  greatest  ruler,  her  greatest 
orator,  and  her  greatest  philosopher.  The  glory 

I 

that  had  been  Greece  faded  now  in  the  dawn  of 
the  Roman  sun;  and  the  grandeur  that  was 
Rome  was  the  pomp  of  power  rather  than  the 
light  of  thought.  And  then  that  grandeur  too 
decayed,  that  little  light  went  almost  out.  For 
a  thousand  years  darkness  brooded  over  the 
face  of  Europe.  All  the  world  awaited  the 
resurrection  of  philosophy. 


.Grote,  22;  Zeller,  i,  37  note.  . 


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A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  7 

Plato.  A  more  dignified  story  takes  him  to 
Athens  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  puts  him  at 
once  under  the  tutelage  of  the  great  Master; 
but  even  in  this  likelier  account  there  is  suf¬ 
ficient  echo  of  a  reckless  and  irregular  youth, 
living  rapidly.1  The  horrified  reader  may  con¬ 
sole  himself  by  observing  that  in  either  story 
our  philosopher  anchors  at  last  in  the  quiet 
groves  of  the  Academy. 

Under  Plato  he  studied  eight — or  twenty — 
years;  and  indeed  the  pervasive  Platonism  of 
Aristotle’s  speculations — even  of  those  most 
anti-Platonic — suggests  the  longer  period.  One 
would  like  to  imagine  these  as  very  happy 
years:  a  brilliant  pupil  guided  by  an  incompar¬ 
able  teacher,  walking  like  Greek  lowers  in  the 
gardens  of  philosophy.  But  they  were  both 
geniuses;  and  it  is  notorious  that  geniuses  ac¬ 
cord  with  one  another  as  harmoniously  as 
dynamite  with  fire.  Almost  half  a  century 
separated  them;  it  was  difficult  for  under¬ 
standing  to  bridge  this  gap  of  years  and  cancel 
the  incompatibility  of  souls.  Plato  recognized 
the  greatness  of  this  strange  new  pupil  from 


*Grote,  Aristotle,  London,  1872.  p.  4;  Zeller,  Aristotle 
and  the  Earlier  Peripatetics,  London,  1897,  voL  i,  pp.  6f. 


8  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

f 

the  supposedly  barbarian  north,  and  spoke  of 
him  once  as  the  Nous  of  the  Academy, — as  if  to 
say,  Intelligence  personified.  Aristotle  had 
spent  money  lavishly  on  the  collection  of  books 
(that  is,  in  those  printless  days,  manuscripts) ; 
he  was  the  first,  after  Euripides,  to  gather  to¬ 
gether  a  library,  and  the  foundation  of  the 
principles  of  library  classification  was  among 
his  many  contributions  to  scholarship.  There¬ 
fore  Plato  spoke  of  Aristotle’s  home  as  ,4the 
house  of  the  reader,”  and  seems  to  have  meant 
the  sincerest  compliment;  but  some  ancient 
gossip  will  have  it  that  the  Master  intended  a 
sly  but  vigorous  dig  at  a  certain  book-wormish- 
ness  in  Aristotle.  A  more  authentic  quarrel 
seems  to  have  arisen  towards  the  end  of  Plato’s 
life.  Our  ambitious  youth  apparently  developed 
an  “CEdipus  complex”  against  his  spiritual 
father  for  the  favors  and  affections  of  philoso¬ 
phy,  and  began  to  hint  that  wisdom  would  not 
die  with  Plato;  while  the  old  sage  spoke  of  hlB 
pupil  as  a  foal  that  kicks  his  mother  after 
draining  her  dry.1  The  learned  Zeller,*  In 
whose  pages  Aristotle  almost  achieves  the 

1Benn,  The  Greek  Philosophers,  London,  1882,  roL .  i, 
p*  283*  s 

*Vol.  i,  p.  11. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  9 

Nirvana  of  respectability,  would  have  us  reject 
these  stories;  but  we  may  presume  that  where 
there  is  still  so  much  smoke  there  was  once  a 
fire. 

% 

The  other  incidents  of  this  Athenian  period 
are  still  more  problematical.  Some  biographers 
tell  us  that  Aristotle  founded  a  school  of 
oratory  to  rival  Isocrates;  and  that  he  had 
among  his  pupils  in  this  school  the  wealthy 
Hermias,  who  was  soon  to  become  autocrat  of 
the  city-state  of  Atarneus.  After  reaching  this 
elevation  Hermias  invited  Aristotle  to  his 
court;  and  in  the  year  844  B.  C.  he  rewarded 
his  teacher  for  past  favors  .by  bestowing  upon 
him  a  sister  (or  a  niece)  in  marriage.  One 
might  suspect  this  as  a  Greek  gift;  but  the 
historians  hasten  to  assure  us  that  Aristotle, 
despite  his  genius,  lived  happily  enough  with 
his  wife,  and  spoke  of  her  most  affectionately 
in  his  will.  It  was  just  a  year  later  that  Philip, 
King  of  Macedon,  called  Aristotle  to  the  court 
at  Pella  to  undertake  the  education  of 
Alexander.  It  bespeaks  the  rising  repute  of 
our  philosopher  that  the  greatest  monarch  of 
the  time,  looking  about  for  the  greatest  teacher, 
should  single  out  Aristotle  to  be  the  tutor  of  the 
future  master  of  the  world. 


10  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

Philip  was  determined  that  his  son  should 
have  every  educational  advantage,  for  he  had 
made  for  him  illimitable  designs.  His  conquest 
of  Thrace  in  356  B.  C.  had  given  him  command 
of  gold  mines  which  at  once  began  to  yield  him 
precious  metal  to  ten  times  the  amount  then 
coming  to  Athens  from  the  falling  silver  of 
Laurium;  his  people  were  vigorous  peasants 
and  warriors,  as  yet  unspoiled  by  city  luxury 
and  vice :  here  was  the  combination  that  would 
make  possible  the  subjugation  of  a  hundred 
petty  city-states  and  the  political  unification 
of  Greece.  Philip  had  no  sympathy  with  the  in¬ 
dividualism  that  had  fostered  the  art  and  in¬ 
tellect  of  Greece  but  had  at  the  same  time  dis¬ 
integrated  her  social  order;  in  all  these  little 
capitals  he  saw  not  the  exhilarating  culture  and 
the  unsurpassable  art,  but  the  commercial  cor¬ 
ruption  and  the  political  chaos;  he  saw  in¬ 
satiable  merchants  and  bankers  absorbing  the 
vital  resources  of  the  nation,  incompetent 
politicians  and  clever  orators  misleading  a  busy 
populace  into  disastrous  plots  and  wars,  fac¬ 
tions  cleaving^  classes  and  classes  congealing 
into  castes:  this,  said  Philip,  was  not  a  nation 
but  only  a  welter  of  individuals, — geniuses  and 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  49 

and  structure  and  entelechy;1  the  egg  of  the 
hen  is  internally  designed  or  destined  to  be¬ 
come  not  a  duck  but  a  chick;  the  acorn  becomes 
not  a  willow  but  an  oak.  This  does  not  mean 
for  Aristotle  that  there  is  an  external  provi¬ 
dence  designing  earthly  structures  and  events; 
rather  the  design  is  internal,  and  arises  from 
the  type  and  function  of  the  thing.  “Divine 
Providence  coincides  completely  for  Aristotle 
with  the  operation  of  natural  causes  ”* * 

Yet  there  is  a  God,  though  not  perhaps  the 
simple  and  human  god  conceived  by  the  for¬ 
givable  anthropomorphism  of  the  adolescent 
mind.  Aristotle  approaches  the  problem  from 
the  old  puzzle  about  motion — how,  he  asks, 
does  motion  begin?  He  will  not  accept  the 
possibility  that  motion  is  as  beginningless  as 
he  conceives  matter  to  be:  matter  may  be 
eternal,  because  it  is  merely  the  everlasting 
possibility  of  future  forms;  but  when  and  how 
did  that  vast  process  of  motion  and  formation 

•  lEntelecheia — having  {echo)  its  purpose  ( telos )  within 
( entos ) ;  one  of  those  magnificent  Aristotelian  terms 
which  gather  up  into  themselves  a  whole  philosophy.  The 
informed  reader  need  not  be  reminded  that  the  “ortho¬ 
genic”  school  of  evolutionists  finds  its  first  formulation 
in  these  passages  of  Aristotle. 

*Ethics ,  i,  10;  Zeller,  ii,  829. 


50  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

begin  which  at  last  filled  the  wide  universe 
with  an  infinity  of  shapes?  Surely  motion  has 
a  source,  says  Aristotle;  and  if  we  are  not  to 
plunge  drearily  into  an  infinite  regress,  putting 
back  our  problem  step  by  step,  endlessly,  we 
must  posit  a  prime  mover  unmoved  (primum 
mobile  immotum),  a  being  incorporeal,  indi¬ 
visible,  spaceless,  sexless,  passionless,  change¬ 
less,  perfect  and  eternal.  God  does  not  create, 
but  he  moves,  the  world;  and  he  moves  it  not 
as  a  mechanical  force  but  as  the  total  motive 
of  all  operations  in  the  world;  “God  mokes  the 
wofld  as  the  beloved  object  moves  the  lover.”1 
He  is  the  final  cause  of  nature,  the  drive  and 
purpose  of  things,  the  form  of  the  world;  the 
principle  of  its  life,  the  sum  of  its  vital  pro¬ 
cesses  and  powers,  the  inherent  goal  of  its 
growth,  the  energizing  entelechy  of  the  whole. 
He  is  pure  energy;1  the  Scholastic  Actus  Purus 
— activity  per  $e ;  perhaps  the  mystic  “Force” 
of  modern  physics  and  philosophy.  He  is  not 
so  much  a  person  as  a  magnetic  power.* 

Yet,  with  his  usual  inconsistency,  Aristoue 


1 Metaphysics ,  ix,  T. 

2Ibid„  xii,  8. 

‘Grant.  173. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  61 

represents  God  as  self-conscious  spirit.  A  rath¬ 
er  mysterious  spirit;  for  Aristotle's  God  never 
does  anything;  he  has  no  desires,  no  will,  no 
purpose;  he  is  activity  so  pure  that  he  never 
acts.  He  is  absolutely  perfect;  therefore  he 
cannot  desire  anything;  therefore  he  does  noth¬ 
ing*.  His  only  occupation  is  to  contemplate 

* 

the  essence  of  things;  and  since  he  himself  is 
the  essence  of  all  things,  the  form  of  all  forms, 
his  sole  employment  is  the  contemplation  of 
himself.1  Poor  Aristotelian  God! — he  is  a  rov 
faineant,  a  do-nothing  king;  "the  king  reigns, 
but  he  does  not  rule."  No  wonder  the  British 
like  Aristotle;  his  God  is  obviously  copied  from 
their  king. 

Or  from  Aristotle  himself.  Our  philosopher 
so  loved  contemplation  that  he  sacrificed  to  it 
his  conception  of  divinity.  His  God  is  of  the 
quiet  Aristotelian  type,  nothing  romantic,  with¬ 
drawn  to  his  ivory  tower  froip  the  strife  and 
stain  of  things;  all  the  world  away  from  the 
philosopher-kings  of  Plato,  or  from  the  stern 
flesh-and-blood  reality  of  Yahveh,  or  the  gentle 
and  solicitous  fatherhood  of  the  Christian  God. 


'Meta,  xii .  8;  Ethics,  x„  8. 


62 


A  GUIDES  TO  ARISTOTLE) 


VI.  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  NATURE  OF  ART 

Aristotle’s  psychology  is  marred  with  similar 
obscurity  and  vacillation.  There  are  many  in¬ 
teresting  passages:  the  power  of  habit  is  em¬ 
phasized,  and  is  for  the  first  time  called  “sec¬ 
ond  nature";  and  the  laws  of  association, 
though  not  developed,  find  here  a  definite  for¬ 
mulation.  But  both  the  crucial  problems  of 
philosophical  psychology— the  freedom  of  the 
will  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul — are  left 
in  haze  and  doubt.  Aristotle  talks  at  times 
like  a  determinist — “We  cannot  directly  will 
to  be  different  from  what  we  are";  but  he  goes 
on  to  argue,  against  determinism',  that  we  can 
choose  what  we  shall  be,  by  choosing  now  the 
environment  that  shall  mould  us;  so  we  are 
free  in  the  sense  that  we  mould  our  own  char¬ 
acters  by  our  choice  of  friends,  books,  occupa¬ 
tions,  and  amusements.1  He  does  not  anticipate 
the  determinist’s  ready  reply  that  these  forma¬ 
tive  choices  are  themselves  determined  by  our 
antecedent  character,  and  this  at  last  by  un« 

'Ethics,  iii,  7. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  81 

later  age  has  drawn  upon  Aristotle,  and  stood 
upon  his  shoulders  to  see  the  truth.  The  varied 
and  magnificent  culture  of  Alexandria  found  its 
scientific  inspiration  in  him.  His  Organon 
played  a  central  rdle  in  shaping  the  minds  of 
the  medieval  barbarians  into  disciplined  and 
consistent  thought.  The  other  works,  trans¬ 
lated  by  Nestorian  Christians  into  Syriac  in  the 
fifth  century  A.  D.,  and  thence  into  Arabic  and 
Hebrew  in  the  tenth  century,  and  thence  into 
Latin  towards  1225,  turned  scholasticism  from 
its  eloquent  beginnings  in  AbSlard  to  encyclo¬ 
pedic  completion  in  Thomas  Aquinas  (1227- 
1274).  The  Crusaders  brought  back  more  ac¬ 
curate  Greek  copies  of  the  philosopher’s  texts; 
and  the  Greek  scholars  of  Constantinople 
brought  further  Aristotelian  treasures  with 
them  when,  after  1453,  they  fled  from  the  be¬ 
sieging  Turks.  The  works  of  Aristotle  came  to 
be  for  European  philosophy  what  the  Bible  was 
for  theology — an  almost  infallible  text,  with 
solutions  for  every  problem.  In  1215  the  Papal 
legate  at  Paris  forbade  teachers  to  lecture  on 
his  works;  in  1231  Gregory  IX  appointed  a 
commission  to  expurgate  him;  by  1260  he  was 
de  rigueur  in  every  Christian  school,  and 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 
ecclesiastical  assemblies  penalized  deviations 
from  his  views.  Chaucer  describes  hiB  student 
as  happy  by  having 

At  his  beddes  hed 

v  Twenty  bookes  clothed  in  blake  or  red  , 

Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophic;1 

and  in  the  first  circles  of  Hell,  Bays  Dante, 

“I  saw  the  Master  there  of  those  who  know. 
Amid  the  philosophic  family. 

By  all  admired,  and  by  all  reverenced ; 
There  Plato  too  I  saw,  and  Socrates, 

Who  stood  beside  him  closer  than  the  rest.* 

Such  lines  give  us  some  inkling  of  the  honor 
which  a  thousand  years  offered  to  the  Stagirite. 
Not  till  new  instruments,  accumulated  observa¬ 
tions,  and  patient  experiments  remade  science 
and  gave  irresistible  weapons  to  Occam  and 
Ramus,  to  Roger  and  Francis  Bacon,  was  the 
reign  of  Aristotle  ended.  No  other  mind  had 
for  so  long  a  time  ruled  the  intellect  of  man¬ 
kind.  V 


xQuoted  by  Benn,  i,  S7S. 
inferno,  iv,  131f. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  93 

X.  LATER  LIFE  AND  DEATH 

Meanwhile  life  had  become  unmanageably 
complicated  for  our  philosopher.  He  found  him¬ 
self  on  the  one  hand  embroiled  with  Alexander 
for  protesting  against  the  execution  of  Cal- 
listhenes  (a  nephew  of  Aristotle),  who  had  re¬ 
fused  to  worship  Alexander  as  a  god;  and 
Alexander  had  answered  the  protest  by  hinting 
that  it  was  quite  within  his  omnipotence  to 
put  even  philosophers  to  death.  At  the  same 
time  Aristotle  was  busy  defending  Alexander 
among  the  Athenians.  He  preferred  Greek 
solidarity  to  city  patriotism,  and  thought  cul¬ 
ture  and  science  would  flourish  better  when 
petty  sovereignties  and  disputes  were  ended; 
and  he  saw  in  Alexander  what  Goethe  was  to 
see  in  Napoleon — the  philosophic  unity  of  a 
chaotic  and  intolerably  manifold  world.  The 
Athenians,  hungering  for  liberty,  growled  at 
Aristotle,  and  became  bitter  when  Alexander 
had  a  statue  of  the  philosopher  put  up  in  the 
heart  of  the  hostile  city.  In  this  turmoil  we  get 
an  impression  of  Aristotle  quite  contrary  to 
that  left  upon  us  by  his  Ethics:  here  is  a  man 


94  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

not  cold  and  inhumanly  calm,  but  a  fighter, 
pursuing  his  Titanic  work  in  a  circle  of  enemies 
on  every  side.  The  successors  of  Plato  at  the 
Academy,  *  the  oratorical  school  of  Isocrates, 
and  the  angry  crowds  that  hung  on  Demos¬ 
thenes*  acid  eloquence,  intrigued  and  clamored 
for  his  exile  or  his  death. 

And  then,  suddenly  (323  B.  C.),  Alexander 
died.  Athens  went  wild  with  patriotic  joy; 
the  Macedonian  party  was  overthrown,  and 
Athenian  independence  was  proclaimed.  An¬ 
tipater,  successor  of  Alexander  and  intimate 
friend  of  Aristotle,  marched  upon  the  rebellious 
city.  Most  of  the  Macedonian  party  fled. 
Eurymedon,  a  chief  priest,  brought  In  an  indict¬ 
ment  against  Aristotle,  charging  him  with 
having  taught  that  prayer  and  sacrifice  were 
of  no  avail.  Aristotle  saw  himself  fated  to  be 
tried  by  juries  and  crowds  incomparably  more 
hostile  than  those  that  had  murdered  Socrates. 
Very  wisely,  he  left  the  city,  saying  that  he 
would  not  give  Athens  a  chance  to  sin  a  second 
time  against  philosophy.  There  was  no 
cowardice  in  this;  an  accused  person  at  Athens 
had  always  the  option  of  preferring  exile.1 


lGrote,  80. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  95 

Arrived  at  Chalcis,  Aristotle  fell  ill;  Diogenes 
Laertius  tells  us  that  the  old  philosopher,  in 
utter  disappointment  with  the  turn  of  all  things 
against  him,  committed  suicide  by  drinking 
hemlock. 1  However  induced,  his  illness  proved 
fatal;  and  a  few  months  after  leaving  Athens 
(322  B.  C.)  the  lonely  Aristotle  died. 

m 

In  the  same  year,  and  at  the  same  age,  sixty- 
two,  Demosthenes,  greatest  of  Alexander’s 
enemies,  drank  poison.  Within  twelve  months 
Greece  had  lost  her  greatest  ruler,  her  greatest 

orator,  and  her  greatest  philosopher.  The  glory 

| 

that  had  been  Greece  faded  now  in  the  dawn  of 
the  Roman  sun;  and  the  grandeur  that  was 
Rome  was  the  pomp  of  power  rather  than  the 
light  of  thought.  And  then  that  grandeur  too 
decayed,  that  little  light  went  almost  out.  For 
a  thousand  years  darkness  brooded  over  the 
face  of  Europe.  All  the  world  awaited  the 
resurrection  of  philosophy. 


LGrote,  22;  Zeller,  i,  37  note.  . 


CN  CENT  POCKET  SERIES  NO.  39 

Edited  by  E.  Haldeman- Julius 


Guide  to  Aristotle 

Will  Durant,  Ph.D. 


HALDEMAN- JULIUS  COMPANY 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


t 


H-  . 

. 

c  ' 

.. • 


.  ■  „ 


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Copyright,  1923 
Haldeman-Julius  Company. 


1  vs 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

WILL  DURANT,  PH.  D. 

tor,  Labor  Temple  School,  New  York  City. 
Instructor  in  Philosophy,  Columbia  University, 
or  of  “Philosophy  and  the  Social  Problem,” 
“A  Guide  to  Plato,”  etc. 


I.  The  Historical  Background .  6 

II.  The  Work  of  Aristotle . ...V.  15 

IIL  The  Foundation  of  Logic .  23 

IV.  The  Organization  of  Science .  32 

1.  Greek  Science  before  Aristotle .  32 

2.  Aristotle  as  a  Naturalist .  38 

3.  The  Foundation  of  Biology .  41 


V.  Metaphysics  and  the  Nature  of  God..  47 

VI.  Psychology  and  the  Nature  of  Art...  52 

VII.  Ethics  and  the  Nature  of  Happiness..  56 


Till.  Politics  .  66 

1.  Communism  and  Conservatism _  66 

2.  Marriage  and  Education .  73 

3.  Democracy  and  Aristocracy .  79 

DL  Criticism . 85 

X.  Later  Life  and  Death .  93 


A  WORD  TO  THE  READER 

The  student  who  has  come  to  philosophy  un¬ 
der  the  spur  of  Plato’s  eloquence  will  need  some 
encouragement  to  face  the  more  practical  and 
prosaic  work  of  Aristotle.  If  he  finds  the  fol¬ 
lowing  essay  difficult  and  unattractive,  let  him 
reflect  that  Aristotle’s  is  almost  the  most  ab¬ 
stract  and  obscure  of  all  the  great  philosophies; 
and  that  only  the  exigencies  of  logical  and 
chronological  sequence  have  led  us  to  study 
him  before  mastering  simpler  systems.  Aris¬ 
totle  is  hard  to  grasp  because  his  work  is  so 
varied  and  manifold  that  no  centralizing  unity 
can  be  found  to  co-ordinate  it  for  easier  com¬ 
prehension.  Nor  is  there  in  his  work  any  en¬ 
thralling  drama  of  passionate  reform;  he  is  a 
njan  of  the  world  who  has  become  almost  recon¬ 
ciled  to  the  eternity  of  human  imperfections. 
The  author  has  spared  neither  time  nor  labor 
to  make  out  under  the  mummy-like  mass  of 
lecture  notes  in  which  Aristotle  has  come  down 
to  us,  the  features  of  the  living  man;  but  he 
is  very  much  afraid  that  he  has  failed. 

W.  D. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 


I.  THE  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND 

Aristotle  was  born  at  Stagira,  a  Macedonia* 
city  some  two  hundred  miles  to  the  north  ol 
Athens,  in  the  year  384  B.  C.  His  father  was 
friend  and  physician  to  Amyntas,  King  o: 
Macedon  and  grandfather  of  Alexander.  Aris 
totle  himself  seems  to  have  become  a  membei 
of  the  great  medical  fraternity  of  Asclepiada 
He  was  brought  up  in  the  odor  of  medicine  ai 
many  later  philosophers  were  brought  up  h 
the  odor  of  sanctity;  he  had  every  opportunit; 
and  encouragement  to  develop  a  scientific  ben 
of  mind;  he  was  prepared  from  the  beginnin 
to  become  the  founder  of  science. 

We  have  a  choice  of  stories  for  his  youtl 
One  narrative  represents  him  as  squanderin 
his  patrimony  in  riotous  living,  joining  tt 
army  to  avoid  starvation,  returning  to  Stagli 
to  practice  medicine,  and  going  to  Athens  i 
the  age  of  thirty  to  study  philosophy  und< 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  7 

Plato.  A  more  dignified  story  takes  him  to 
Athens  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  puts  him  at 
once  under  the  tutelage  of  the  great  Master; 
but  even  in  this  likelier  account  there  is  suf- 

fcIS ,  * 

ficient  echo  of  a  reckless  and  irregular  youth, 
living  rapidly.1  The  horrified  reader  may  con¬ 
sole  himself  by  observing  that  in  either  story 
our  philosopher  anchors  at  last  in  the  quiet 
groves  of  the  Academy. 

\  Under  Plato  he  studied  eight — or  twenty — 
years;  and  indeed  the  pervasive  Platonism  of 
Aristotle’s  speculations — even  of  those  most 
anti-Platonic — suggests  the  longer  period.  One 
would  like  to  imagine  these  as  very  happy 
years:  a  brilliant  pupil  guided  by  an  incompar¬ 
able  teacher,  walking  like  Greek  lovers  in  the 
gardens  of  philosophy.  But  they  were  both 
geniuses;  and  it  is  notorious  that  geniuses  ac¬ 
cord  with  one  another  as  harmoniously  as 
dynamite  with  fire.  Almost  half  a  century 
separated  them;  it  was  difficult  for  under¬ 
standing  to  bridge  this  gap  of  years  and  cancel 
the  incompatibility  of  souls.  Plato  recognized 
the  greatness  of  this  strange  new  pupil  from 
-u — 

KIrote,  Aristotle,  London,  1872.  p.  4;  Zeller,  Aristotle 
<  tnd  the  Earlier  Peripatetics,  London,  1897,  vol.  i,  pp.  6f. 


8  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

the  supposedly  barbarian  north,  and  spoke  of 
him  once  as  the  Nous  of  the  Academy, — as  if  to 
say,  Intelligence  personified.  Aristotle  had 
spent  money  lavishly  on  the  collection  of  books 
(that  is,  in  those  printless  days,  manuscripts) ; 
he  was  the  first,  after  Euripides,  to  gather  to¬ 
gether  a  library,  and  the  foundation  of  the 
principles  of  library  classification  was  among 
his  many  contributions  to  scholarship.  There¬ 
fore  Plato  spoke  of  Aristotle’s  home  as  ‘‘the 
house  of  the  reader,”  and  seems  to  have  meant 
the  sincerest  compliment;  but  some  ancient 
gossip  will  have  it  that  the  Master  intended  si 
sly  but  vigorous  dig  at  a  certain  book-wormish- 
ness  in  Aristotle.  A  more  authentic  quarrel 
seems  to  have  arisen  towards  the  end  of  Plato’s 
life.  Our  ambitious  youth  apparently  developed 
an  “(Edipus  complex”  against  his  spiritual 
father  for  the  favors  and  affections  of  philoso¬ 
phy,  and  began  to  hint  that  wisdom  would  not 
die  with  Plato;  while  the  old  sage  spoke  of  his 
pupil  as  a  foal  that  kicks  his  mother  after 
draining  her  dry.1 2  The  learned  Zeller,8  in 
whose  pages  Aristotle  almost  achieves  the 

1Benn,  The  Greek  Philosophers,  London,  1882,  vol.  k 
p.  283.  ‘  '* 

2Vol.  i,  p.  11. 


9 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

irvana  of  respectability,  would  have  us  reject 
xese  stories;  but  we  may  presume  that  where 
|  iere  is  still  so  much  smoke  there  wTas  once  a 
;  re.  ' 

j  The  other  incidents  of  this  Athenian  period 
re  still  more  problematical.  Some  biographers 
All  us  that  Aristotle  founded  a  school  of 
ratory  to  rival  Isocrates;  and  that  he  had 
mong  his  pupils  in  this  school  the  wealthy 
lermias,  who  was  soon  to  become  autocrat  of 
|  tie  city-state  of  Atarneus.  After  reaching  this 
levation  Hermias  invited  Aristotle  to  his 
ourt;  and  in  the  year  344  B.  C.  he  rewarded 
is  teacher  for  past  favors  by  bestowing  upon 
im  a  sister  (or  a  niece)  in  marriage.  One 
light  suspect  this  as  a  Greek  gift;  but  the 
istorians  hasten  to  assure  us  that  Aristotle, 

I  espite  his  genius,  lived  happily  enough  with 
is  wife,  and  spoke  of  her  most,  affectionately 
l  a  his  will.  It  was  just  a  year  later  that  Philip, 

!  :ing  of  Macedon,  called  Aristotle  to  the  court 
!  c  Pella  to  undertake  the  education  of 
!  dexander.  It  bespeaks  the  rising  repute  of 
uk*  philosopher  that  the  greatest  monarch  of 
tie  time,  looking  about  for  the  greatest  teacher, 
hould  single  out  Aristotle  to  be  the  tutor  of  the 
uture  master  of  the  world. 


10  ’  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

Philip  was  determined  that  his  son  shouL 
have  every  educational  advantage,  for  he  ha 
made  for  him  illimitable  designs.  His  conques 
of  Thrace  in  356  B.  C.  had  given  him  comman 
of  gold  mines  which  at  once  began  to  yield  hii 
precious  metal  to  ten  times  the  amount  the 
coming  to  Athens  from  the  failing  silver  o 
Laurium;  his  people  were  vigorous  peasant 
and  warriors,  as  yet  unspoiled  by  city  luxur; 
and  vice:  here  was  the  combination  that  wouh 
make  possible  the  subjugation  of  a  hundree 
petty  city-states  and  the  political  unificatioi 
of  Greece.  Philip  had  no  sympathy  with  the  in 
dividualism  that  had  fostered  the  art  and  in 
tellect  of  Greece  but  had  at  the  same  time  dis 
integrated  her  social  order;  in  all  these  little 
capitals  he  saw  not  the  exhilarating  culture  ant 
the  unsurpassable  art,  but  the  commercial  cor 
ruption  and  the  political  chaos;  he  saw  in 
satiable  merchants  and  bankers  absorbing  the 
vital  resources  of  the  nation,  incompeten 
politicians  and  clever  orators  misleading  a  bus: 
populace  into  disastrous  plots  and  wars,  fiac 
tions  cleaving  classes  and  classes  congealing 
into  castes:  this,  said  Philip,  was  not  a  nation 
but  only  a  welter  of  individuals,— geniuses  and 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  11 

slaves;  he  would  bring  the  hand  of  order  down 
x’pon  this  turmoil,  and  make  all  Greece  stand 
up  united*  and  strong  as  the  political  center  and 
basis  of  the  world.  In  his  youth  in  Thebes  he 
had  learned  the  ar.ts  of  military  strategy  and 
civil  organization  under  the  noble  Epami- 

: 

nondas;  and  now,  with  courage  as  boundless 
as  his  ambition,  he  bettered  the  instruction. 
In  338  B.  C.  he  defeated  the  Athenians  at 

I  • 

Chaeronea,  and  saw  at  last  a  Grepce  united, 

^  though  with  chains.  And  then,  as  he  stood 
1  upon  this  victory,  and  planned  how  he  and  his 
|  son  should  masted  and  unify  the  world,  he  fell 
t  under  an  assassin’s  hand. 


nr 


tfij 

iH 

'U 


13 ; 


Alexander,  when  Aristotle  came,  was  a  wild 
youth  of  thirteen;  passionate,  epileptic,  almost 
alcoholic;  it  was  his  pastime  to  tame  horses 
untamable  by  men.  The  efforts  of  the 
philosopher  to  cool  the  fires  of  this  budding 
volcano  were  not  of  much  avail;  Alexander  had 
better  success  with  Bucephalus  than  Aristotle 
with  Alexander.  “For  a  while,”  says  Plutarch, 
“Alexander  loved  and  cherished  Aristotle  no 
less  than  as  if  he  had  been  his  own  father;  say¬ 
ing  that  though  he  had  received  life  from  the 


one,  the  other  had  taught  him  the  art  of  living.’ 


12  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 


(“Life,”  says  a  fine  Greek  adage,  “is  the  gift 
of  nature;  but  beautiful  living  is  the  gift  of 
wisdom.”)  “For.  my  part,”  said  Alexander  in 
a  letter  to  Aristotle,  “I  had  rather  excel  in 
the  knowledge  of  what  is  good  than  in  the 
extent  of  my  power  and  dominion.”  But  this 
was  probably  no  more  than  a  royal-youthful 
compliment;  beneath  the  enthusiastic  tyro  of 
philosophy  was  the  fiery  son  of  a  barbarian 
princess  and  an  untamed  king;  the  restraints 
of  reason  were  too  delicate  to  hold  these  an¬ 
cestral  passions  in  leash;  and  Alexander  left 
philosophy  after  two  years  to  mount  the  throne 
and  ride  the  world.  History  leaves  us  free  to 
believe  (though  we  should  suspect  these 
pleasant  thoughts)  that  Alexander’s  unifying 
passion  derived  some  of  its  force  and  grandeur 
from  his  teacher,  the  most  synthetic  thinker 
in  the  history  of  thought;  and  that  the  con¬ 
quest  of  order  in  the  political  realm  by  the 
pupil,  and  in  the  philosophic  realm  by  the 
master,  were  but  diverse  sides  of  one  noble 
and  epic  project — two  magnificent  Macedonians 
unifying  two  chaotic  worlds. 


But  as  usual,  impersonal  economic  factors  lay 
hidden  under  the  surface  of  personal  and 


STm 


13 


A  GUIDE  TO  AklSTOTLE 
dramatic  events.  The  development  of  com¬ 
merce  had  bound  the  Mediterranean  nations, 
from  Persia  to  Spain,  into  one  great  web  of 
trade;  and  this  commercial  unity,  harassed  in 
a  thousand  ways  by  political  frontiers,  auto¬ 
cratic  tolls,  and  the  vicissitudes  of  unprotected 
transport,  called  insistently  for  unity  of 
political  and  military  administration.  Persia 
controlled  the  Asiatic  land  routes  of  the  eastern 
half  of  this  economic  system;  Gr.eece  (or,  since 
Philip,  Macedon)  controlled  the  Mediterranean 
sea-routes  of  the  western  half.  It  appeared  to 
Alexander  that  the  absorption  of  one  of  these 
political  systems  by  the  other  was  made  in¬ 
evitable  by  the  growing  pressure  of  economic 
circumstance.  Hence  his  reply  to  the  Persian 
embassy  which  came  to  him  from  Darius,  sug¬ 
gesting  conciliation  and  division  of  rule:  “As  it 
would  be  impossible  for  order  to  reign  in  the 
world  with  two  suns,  so  it  is  impossible  for 
the  earth  to  be  at  peace  with  two  masters.” 
And  so  he  set  out,  in  the  year  334  B.  C.,  to  con¬ 
quer  Persia.  Three  years  later  the  task  was 

accomplished,  and  the  Mediterranean  world 
was  one. 

He  had  left  behind  ^him,  in  the  cities  df 


14  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

Greece,  governments  favorable  to  him  but 
populations  resolutely  hostile.  The  long 
tradition  of  a  free  and  once  imperial  Athens 
made  subjection — even  to  a  brilliant  world-con¬ 
quering  despot — intolerable;  and  the  bitter 
eloquence  of  Demosthenes  kept  the  Assembly 
always  on  the  edge  of  revolt  against  the 
“Macedonian  party”  that  held  the  reins  of  city 
power.  Now  when  Aristotle,  after  another 

X 

period  of  travel,  returned  to  Athens  in  the  year 
334  B.  C.,  he  very  naturally  associated  with 
this  Macedonian  group,  and  took  no  pains  to 
conceal  his  approval  of  Alexander’s  unifying 
rule.  As  we  study  the  remarkable  succession 
of  works,  in  speculation  and  research,  which. 
Aristotle  proceeded  to  unfold  in  the  last  twelve 
years  of  his  life;  and  as  we  watch  him  in 
his  multifold  tasks  of  organizing  his  school, 
and  of  organizing  such  a  wealth  of  knowledge 
as  probably  never  before  had  passed  through 
the  mind  of  one  man;  let  us  occasionally 
remember  that  this  was  no  quiet  and  secure 
pursuit  of  truth;  that  at  any  minute  the 
political  sky  might  change,  and  precipitate  a 
storm  in  this  peaceful  philosophic  life.  Only 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  15 

with  this  situation  in  mind  shall  we  understand 
Aristotle’s  political  philosophy,  and  his  tragic 
end. 

II.  THE  WORK  OF  ARISTOTLE 

It  was  not  hard  for  the  instructor  of  the 
king  of  kings  to  find  pupils  even  in  so  hostile 
a  city  as  Athens.  When,  in  the  fifty-third  year 
of  his  age,  Aristotle  established  his  school,  the 
Lyceum,  so  many  students  flocked  to  him  that 
it  became  necessary  to  make  complicated  regu¬ 
lations  for  the  maintenance  of  order.  The 
students  themselves  determined  the  rules,  and 
elected,  every  ten  days,  one  of  their  number 
to  supervise  the  School.  But  we  must  not 
think  of  it  as  a  place  of  rigid  discipline;  rather 
the  *  picture  which  comes  down  to  us  is  of 
scholars  eating  their  meals  in  common  with 
the  master,  and  learning  from  him  as  he  and 
they  strolled  up  and  down  the  Walk  along  the 
athletic  field  from  which  the  Lyceum  took  its 
name.1 

VThe  Walk  was  called  Peripatos;  hence  the  later  name 
Peripatetic  School.  The  athletic  field  was  part  of  the 
grounds  of  the  temple  of  Apollo  Lyceus — the  protector 
of  the  flock  against  the  wolf  ( lycos ). 


16  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

The  new  School  was  no  mere  replica  of  that 
which  Plato  had  left  behind  him.  The  Academy 
was  devoted  above  all  to  mathematics  and  to 
speculative  and  political  philosophy;  the 
Lyceum  had  rather  a  tendency  to  biology  and 
the  natural  sciences.  If  we  may  believe  Pliny,1 
Alexander  instructed  his  hunters,  gamekeepers, 
gardeners  and  fishermen  to  furnish  Aristotle 
with  all  the  zoological  and  botanical  material 
he  might  desire;  other  ancient  writers  tell  us 
that  at  one  time  he  had  at  his  disposal  a 
thousand  men  scattered  throughout  Greece 

s 

and  Asia,  collecting  for  him  specimens  of  the 
fauna  and  flora  of  every  land.  With  this 
wealth  of  material  he  was  enabled  to  establish 
the  first  great  zoological  garden  that  the  world 
had  seen.  We  can  hardly  exaggerate  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  this  collection  upon  his  science  and 
his  philosophy. 

Where  did  Aristotle  derive  the  funds  to 
finance  these  undertakings?  He  was  himself, 
by  this  time,  a  man  of  spacious  income;  and  he 
had  married  into  the  fortune  of  one  of  the  most 
powerful  public  men  in  Greece.  Athenaeus  (no 

Wist.  Nat.,  viii,  16;  in  Lewes,  Aristotle,  a  Chapter 
from  the  History  of  Science,  London,  1864,  p.  15. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  17 

doubt  with  some  exaggeration)  relates  that 
Alexander  gave  Ariatotl®,  for  physical  and 
biological  equipment  and  research,  the  sum  of 
800  talents  (in  modern  purchasing  power,  some 
$4, 000, 000). 1 2  It  was  at  Aristotle’s  suggestion, 
some  think,  that  Alexander  sent  a  costly  ex¬ 
pedition  to  explore  the  sources  of  the  Nile  and' 
discover  the  causes  of  its  periodical  overflow.3 
Such  works  as  the  digest  of  158  political  com 
stitutions,  drawn  up  for  Aristotle,  indicate  a 
considerable  corps  of  aides  and  secretaries.  In 

k 

short  we  have  here  the  first  example  in 
European  history  of  the  large-scale  financing  of 
science  by  public  wealth.  What  knowledge 
would  we  not  win  if  modern  states  were  to  sup¬ 
port  research  on  a  proportionately  lavish  scale! 

Yet  we  should  do  Aristotle  injustice  if  we 
were  to  ignore  the  almost  fatal  limitations  of 
equipment  which  accompanied  these  unpre¬ 
cedented  resources  and  facilities.  He  was  com¬ 
pelled  “to  fix  time  without  a  watch,  to  compare 
degrees  of  heat  without  a  thermometer,  to 
observe  the  heavens  without  a  telescope,  and 
the  weather  without  a  barometer.  ...  Of  all 

1Grant,  Aristotle,  Edinburgh,  1877,  p.  18. 

2The  expedition  reported  that  the  inundations  were  due 

to  the  melting  of  the  snow  on  the  mountains  of  Abyssinia. 


18  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  » 

our  mathematical,  optical  and  physical  instru¬ 
ments  he  possessed  only  the  rule  and  compass, 
together  with  the  most  imperfe-ct  substitutes 

*  t  N---. 

for  some  few  others.  Chemical  analysis,  cor¬ 
rect  measurements  and ‘weights,  and  a  thorough 
application  of  mathematics  to  physics,  were 
unknown.  The  attractive  force  of  matter,  the 
law  of  gravitation,  electrical  phenomena,  the 
conditions  of  chemical  combination,  pressure  of 
air  and  its  effects,  the  nature  of  light,  heat, 
combustion,  etc.,  in  short,  all  the  facts  on 
which  the  physical  theories  of  modern  science 
are  based  were  wholly,  or  almost  wholly,  un¬ 
discovered.”1 

See,  here,  how  inventions  make  history:  for 
lack  of  a  telescope  Aristotle’s  astronomy  is  a 
tissue  of  childish  romance;  for  lack  of  a  micro¬ 
scope  his  biology  wanders  endlessly  astray. 
Indeed,  it  was  in  industrial  and  technical  in¬ 
vention  that  Greece  fell  furthest  below  the 
general  standard  of  its  unparalleled  achieve¬ 
ments.  ,,  The  Greek  disdain  of  manual  work 
kept  everybody  but  the  listless  slave  from 
direct  acquaintance  with  the  processes  of  pro¬ 
duction,  from  that  stimulating  contact  with 


teller,  i,  264,  443. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  ig 

machinery  which  reveals  defects  and  prefigures 
possibilities;  technical  invention  was  possible 
only  to  those  who  had  no  interest  in  it,  and 
could  not  derive  from  it  any  material  reward. 
Perhaps  the  very  cheapness  of  the  slaves  made 
invention  lag;  muscle  was  still  less  costly  than 
machines.  And  so,  while  Greek  commerce  con¬ 
quered  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  Greek 
philosophy  conquered  the  Mediterranean  mind, 
Greek  science  straggled,  and  Greek  industry 
remained  almost  where  ^Egean  industry  had 
been  when  the  invading  Greeks  had  come  down 
upon  it,  at  Cnossos,  at  Tiryns  and  Mycene,  a 
thousand  years  before.  No  doubt  we  have  here 
the  reason  why  Aristotle  so  seldom  appeals  to 
experiment;  the  mechanisms  of  experiment 
had  not  yet  been  made;  and  the  best  he  could 
do  was  to  achieve  an  almost  universal  and  con¬ 
tinuous  observation.  Nevertheless  the  vast 
body  of  data  gathered  by  him  and  his  assistants 
became  the  groundwork  of  the  progress  of 
science,  the  text-book  of  knowledge  for  two 
thousand  years;  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 

work  of  man. 

*  * 

Aristotle’s  writings  ran  into  the  hundreds. 
Some  ancient  authors  cr,edit  him  with  four 


20  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

hundred  volumes,  others  with  a  thousand. 
What  remains  is  but  a  part,  and  yet  it  is  a 
library  in  itself — conceive  the  scope  and 
grandeur  of  the  whole.  There  are,  first,  the 
Logical  works:  “Categories,”  “Topics,”  “Prior” 
and  “Posterior  Analytics,”  “Propositions,”  and 
“Sophistical  Refutations;”  these  works  were 
collected  and  edited  by  the  later  Peripatetics 
under  the  general  title  of  Aristotle’s  “Organon,” 
— that  is,  the  organ  or  instrument  of  correct 
thinking.  Secondly,  there  are  the  Scientific 
works:  “Physics,”  “On  the  '  Heavens,” 

“Growth  and  Decay,”  “Meteorology,”  “Natural 
History,”  “On  the  Soul,”  “The  Parts  of 
Animals,”  “The  Movements  of  Animals,”  and 
“The  Generation  of  Animals.”-  There  are, 
thirdly,  the  Esthetic  works:  “Rhetoric”  and 
“Poetics.”  And  fourthly  come  the  more  strictly 
Philosophical  works:  “Ethics,”  “Politics,”  and 
“Metaphysics.”1  Here,  evidently,  is  the  Encylo- 
pedia  Brittanica  of  Greece:  every  problem 
under  the  sun  and  about  it  finds  a  place;  no 
wonder  there  are  more  errors  and  absurdities 
here  than  in  any  other  philosopher  who  ever 

1This  is  the  chronological  order,  so  far  as  known 
(Zeller,  i,  156f).  Our  discussion  will  follow  this  order 
except  in  the  case  of  the  “Metaphysics.” 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  21 

wrote.  Here  is  such  a  synthesis  of  knowledge 
and  theory  as  no  man  would  ever  achieve  again 
t.11  Spencer's  day,  and  even  then  not  half  so 
fvf6']11  C^ntly’  ^ere*  better  than  Alexander’s 

1  aD  victory-  Was  a  conquest  of  the 

world.  If  philosophy  is  the  quest  of  unity 
Aristotle  deserves  the  high  name  that  twenty 

cen  uries  gave  him  I  lie  PMlosophus:  The 
Philosopher. 

Naturally,  in  a  mind  of  such  scientific  turn 
poesy  was  lacking.  We  must  not  expect  of 
Aristotle  such  literary  brilliance  as  floods  the 
Pages  of  the  dramatist-philosopher  Plato. 
Instead  of  giving  us  great  literature,  in  which 
philosophy  is  embodied  (and  obscured)  in  myth 
and  imagery,  Aristotle  gives  us  science, 
technical,  abstract,  concentrated;  if  we  go  to 
him  for  entertainment  we  shall  sue  for  the 
return  of  our  money.  Instead  of  giving  terms 
to'  literature,  as  Plato  did,  he  builds  the 
terminology, of  science  and  philosophy;  we  can 
hardly  speak  of  any  science  today  without  em- 
p  oying  terms  which  he  invented;  they  lie  like 
fossils  in  the  strata  of  our  speech:  fa JS 
mean,  maxim,  (meaning,  in  Aristotle,  the 
major  premiss  of  a  syllogism),  category,  energy. 


22  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

actuality,  motive,  end,  principle,  form — these 
indispensable  coins  of  philosophic  thought  were 
minted  in  his  mind.  And  perhaps  this  passage 
from  delightful  dialogue  to  precise  scientific 
treatise  was  a  necessary  step  in  the  development 
of  philosophy;  and  science,  which  is  the  basis 
and  backbone  of  philosophy,  could  not  grow 
until  it  had  evolved  its  own  strict  methods  of 
procedure  and  expression.  Aristotle,  too,  wrote 
literary  dialogues,  as  highly  reputed  in  their 
day  as  Plato’s;  but  they  are  lost,  just  as  the 
scientific  v  treatises  of  Plato  have  perished. 
Probably  time  has  preserved  of  each  man  the 
better  part. 

Finally,  it  is  possible  that  the  writings  at¬ 
tributed  to  Aristotle  were  not  his,  but  were 
largely  the  compilations  of  students  and  fol¬ 
lowers  who  had  embalmed  the  unadorned  sub¬ 
stance  of  his  lectures  in  their  notes.  It  does 
not  appear  that  Aristotle  published  in  his  life¬ 
time  any  writings  'except  those  on  logic  and 
rhetoric;  and  the  present  form  of  the  logical 
treatises  is  due  to  later  editing.  In  the  case  of 
the  Metaphysics  and  the  Politics  the  notes  left 
by  Aristotle  seem  to  have  been  put  together  by 
his  executors  without  revision  or  alteration. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  23 

Even  the  unity  of  style  which  marks  Aristotle’s 
writings,  and  offers  an  argument  to  those  who 
defend  his  direct  authorship,  may  be,  after  all, 
merely  a  unity  given  them  through  common 
editing  by  the  Peripatetic  School.  About  this 
matter  there  rages  a  sort  of  Homeric  question, 
of  almost  epic  scope,  into  which  the  busy  reader 
will  not  care  to  go,  and  on  which  a  modest 
student  will  not  undertake  to  judge.1  We  may 
at  all  events  be  sure  that  Aristotle  is  the 
spiritual  author  of  all  these  books  that  bear  his 
name:  that  the  hand  may  be  in  some  cases 
another’s  hand,  but  that  the  head  and  the  heart 
are  his.3 

III.  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  LOGIC. 

The  first  great  distinction  of  Aristotle  is  that 

almost  without  predecessors,  almost  entirely  by 

his  own  hard  thinking,  he  created  a  new 
-  «s  , 

Kif.  Zeller,  ii,  204,  note;  Encyc.  Britt.,  ii,  509;  and 
Shule:  History  of  the  Aristotelian  Writings. 

2The  reader  who  wishes  to  go  to  the  philosopher  him¬ 
self  will  find  the  Meteorology  an  interesting  example  of 
Aristotle’s  scientific  work;  he  will  derive  much  practical 
instruction  from  the  Rhetoric ;  and  he  will  find  Aristotle 
at  his  best  in  books  i-ii  of  the  Ethics,  and  books  i-iv  of 
the  Politics.  The  best  translation  of  the  Ethics  is  Well- 
don’s;  of  the  Politics,  Jowett’s.  Sir  Alexander  Grant’s 
Aristotle  is  a  simple  book;  Zeller’s  Aristotle  (vols.  iii- 
iv  in  his  Greek  Philosophy) ,  is  scholarly  but  dry;  Gom- 
perz’s  Greek  Thinkers  (vol.  iv)  is  masterly  but  difficult. 


24  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

science — Logic.  Renan1  speaks  of  “the  ill  train¬ 
ing  of  every  mind  that  has  not,  directly  or  in¬ 
directly,  come  under  Greek  discipline;”  hut  in 
truth  the  Greek  intellect  itself  was  undiscip¬ 
lined  and  chaotic  till  the  ruthless  formulae  of 
Aristotle  provided  a  ready  method  for  the  test 
and  correction  of  thought.  Even  Plato  (if  a 
lover  may  so  far  presume)  was  an  unruly  and 
irregular  soul,  caught  up  too  frequently  in  a 
cloud  of  myth,  and  letting  beauty  too  richly 
veil  the  face  of  truth.  Aristotle  himself,  as  we 
shall  see,  violated  his  own  canons  plentifully; 
but  then  he  was  the  product  of  his  past,  and 
not  of  that  future  which  his  thought  would 
build.  The  political  and  economic  decay  of 
Greece  brought  a  weakening  of  the  Hellenic 
mind  and  character  after  Aristotle;  but  when 
a  new  race,  after  a  millenium  of  barbaric 
darkness,  £ound  again  the  leisure  and  ability  for 
speculation,  it  was  Aristotle’s  “Organon”  of 
logic,  translated  by  Boethius  (470-525  A.  D.), 
that  became  the  very  mould  of  medieval 
thought,  the  strict  mother  of  that  scholastic 
philosophy  which,  though  rendered  sterile  by 
encircling,  dogmas,  nevertheless  trained  the  in- 


1History  of  the  People  of  Israel,  vol.  v,  p.  328. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  25 

tellect  of  adolescent  Europe  to  reasoning  and 
subtlety,  constructed  the  terminology  of  modern 
science,  and  laid  the  bases  of  that  same  matur¬ 
ity  of  mind  which  was  to  outgrow  and  over¬ 
throw  the  very  system  and  methods  which  had 
given  it  birth  and  sustenance. 

Logic  means,  simply,  the  art  and  method  of 
correct  thinking.  It  is  the  logy  or  method  of 
every  science,  of  every  discipline  and  every 
art;  and  even  music  harbors  it.  It  is  a  science 
because  to  a  considerable  extent  the  processes 
of  right  thinking  (and  we  use  “right”  not  in  a 
moral  but  in  a  mathematical  sense)  can  be  re¬ 
duced  to  rules  like  physics  and  geometry,  and 
taught  to  any  normal  mind;  it  is  an  art  because 
by  practice  it  gives  to  thought,  at  last,  that 
unconscious  and  immediate  accuracy  which 
guides  the  fingers  of  the  pianist  over  his  in¬ 
strument  to  effortless  harmonies.  Nothing  is 
so  dull  as  logic,  and  nothing  is  so  important. 

There  was  a  hint  of  this  new  science  in 
Socrates’  maddening  insistence  on  definitions, 
and  in  Plato  s  constant  refining  of  every  concept. 
Aristotle  s  little  treatise  on  Definitions  shows 
how  his  logic  found  nourishment  at  this  source. 
“If  you  wish  to  converse' with  me,”  said  Vol- 


26  A  GXJIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

tair#,  “define  your  terms.”  How  many  a  debat# 
would  have  been  deflated  into  a  paragraph  if 
the  disputants  had  dared  to  define  their  terms! 
This  is  the  alpha  and  omega  of  logic,  the  heart 
and  soul  of  it,  that  every  important  term  in 
serious  discourse  shall  be  subjected  to  strictest 
scrutiny  and  definition.  It  is  difficult,  and 
ruthlessly  tests  the  mind;  but  once  done  it  is 
half  of  any  task. 

Yet  how  shall  we  proceed  to  define  an  object 

v  ) 

or  a  term?  Aristotle  answers  that  every  good 
definition  has  two  parts,  stands  on  two  solid 
feet:  first,  it  assigns  the  object  in  question  to 
a  class  or  group  of  objects  whose  general 
characteristics  are  also  its  own — so  man  is, 
first  of  all,  an  animal;  and  secondly,  it  in¬ 
dicates  wherein  the  object  differs  from  all  the 
other  members  in  its  class — so  man,  in  the 
Aristotelian  system,  is  a  rational  animal,  his 
“specific  difference”  is  that  unlike  all  other 
animals  he  is  rational  (here,  you  see,  is  the 
origin  of  a  pretty  legend).  Aristotle  drops  an 
object  into  the  ocean  of  its  class,  then  takes  it 
out  all  dripping  with  generic  meaning,  with 
the  marks  of  its  kind  and  group;  while  its 
individuality  and  difference  shine  out  all  the 


A  GUIQJE  TO  ARISTOTLE  27 

more  clearly  (or  this  juxtaposition  with  other 

objects  which  resemble  it  so  much  and  are  so 
different. 


Passing  out  from  this  rear  line  of  logic  we 
come  into  the  great  battlefield  on  which  Aris¬ 
totle  fought  out  with  Plato  the  dread  question 
of  “universal^ ;  it  was  the  fir'st  conflict  in  a 
war  which  was  to  last  till  our  own  day,  and 
make  all  medieval  Europe  ring  with  the  clash 
of  realists”  and  “nominalists.”1  A  universal, 
to  Aristotle,  is  any  common  noun,  any  name 
capable  of  universal  application  to  the  members 
of  a  class:  so  animal,  man,  look,  tree,  are 
universal.  But  these  universal  are  subjective 
notions,  not  tangibly  objective  realities;  they 
are  nomina  (names),  not  res  (things);  all  that 
exists  outside  us  is  a  world  of  individual  and 
specific  objects,  not  of  generic  and  universal 
things;  men  exist,  and  trees,  and  animals;  but 
ma-n-in-general,  or  the  universal  man,  does  not 
exist,  except  in  thought;  he  is  a  handy  mental 
abstraction,  not  an  external  presence  or  re-ality. 
Now  Aristotle  understands  Plato  to  “have  held 


SchLeTsaid1  “F ^  t0-  debate  that  Friedrich 
In  e„her  a  Pla.onis, 


or 


28  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

that  universals  have  objective  existence;  and 
indeed  Plato  had  said  that  the  universal  is  in¬ 
comparably  more  lasting  and  important  and 
substantial  than  the  individual, — the  latter 
being  but  a  little  wavelet  in  a  ceaseless  surf; 
men  come  and  go,  but  man  goes  on  forever. 
Aristotle’s  is  a  matter-of-fact  mind;  as  William 
James  would  say,  a  tough,  not  a  tender,  mind; 
he  sees  the  root  of  endless  mysticism  and 
scholarly  nonsense  in  this  Platonic  “realism;” 
and  he  attacks  it  with  all  the  vigor  of  a  first 
polemic.  As  Brutus  loved  not  Caesar  less  but 
Rome  more,  so  Aristotle  says,  Amicus  Plato , 
sed  magis  arnica  vcritas — “Dear  is  Plato,  but 
dearer  still  is(  truth.”  A  hostile  commentator 
might  remark  that  Aristotle  (like  Nietzsche) 
criticizes  Plato  so  keenly  because  he  is  con¬ 
scious  of  having  borrowed  from  him  generously; 
no  man  is  a  hero  to  his  debtors.  But  Aristotle 
has  a  healthy  attitude,  nevertheless;  he  is  a 
realist  almost  in  the  modern  sense;  he  is  re¬ 
solved  to  concern  himself  with  the  objective 
presence,  while  Plato  is  absorbed  in  a  subjective 
future;  or,  to  juggle  with  the  words,  Aristotle 
has  a  present  objective,  and  Plato’s  subject  is 
the  future.  There  was,  in  the  Socratic-Platonic 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  29 

demand  for  definitions,  a  tendency  away  from 
things  and  facts  to  theories  and  ideas,  from 
particulars  to  generalities,  from  science  to 
scholasticism;  at  last  Plato  became  so  devoted 
to  generalities  that  they  began  to  determine 
his  particulars,  so  devoted  to  ideas  that  they 
began  to  define  or  select  his  facts.  Aristotle 
preaches  a  return  to  things,  to  the  “unwithered 
face  of  nature”  and  reality;  he  had  a  lusty 
preference  for  the  concrete  particular,  for  the 
flesh  and  blood  individual.  But  Plato  so  loved 
the  general  and  universal  that  in  the  Republic 
he  destroyed  the  individual  to  make  a  perfect 
state. 

Yet,  as  is  the  usual  humor  of  history,  the 
young  warrior  takes  over  many  of  the  qualities 
of  the  old  master  whom  he  assails.  We  have 
always  goodly  stock  in  us  of  that  which  we 
condemn:  as  only  similars  can  be  profitably 
contrasted,  so  only  similar  people  quarrel,  and 
the  bitterest  wars  are  over  the  slightest 
variations  of  purpose  or  belief.  The  knightly 
Crusaders  found  in  Saladin  a  gentleman  with 
whom  they  could  quarrel  amicably;  but  when 
the  Christians  of  Eurdpe  broke  into  hostile 
camps  there  was  no  quarter  for  even  the 


30  ,  A  GUIDE  10  ARISTOTLE 

•ourtliest  foe.  Aristotle  is  so  ruthless  wHh 
Plato  because  there  is  so  much  of  Plato  in  him; 
he  too  remains  a  lover  of  abstractions  and  gen¬ 
eralities,  repeatedly  betraying  the  simple  fact 
for  some  speciously  bedizened  theory,  and  com¬ 
pelled  to  a  continuous  struggle  to  conquer  the 
philosophic  passion  for  exploring  the  empyrean. 

There  is  a  heavy  trace  of  this  in  the  most 
characteristic  and  original  of  Aristotle’s  con¬ 
tributions  to  philosophy — the  doctrine  of  the 
syllogism.  A  syllogism  is  a  trio  ‘of  propositions 
of  which  the  third  (the  conclusion)  follows 
from  the  conceded  truth  of  the  other  two  (the 
“major”  and  “minor”  premisses).  E.  g.,  man 
is  a  rational  animal;  but  Socrates  is  a  man; 
therefore  Socrates  is  a  rational  animal.  The 
mathematical  reader  will  see  at  once  that  the 
structure  of  *the  syllogism  resembles  the 
proposition  that  two  things  equal  to  the  same 
thing  are  equal  to  each  other;  if  A  is  B,  and 
C  is  A,  then  C  is  B.  As  in  the  mathematical 
case  the  conclusion  is  reached  by  canceling 
from  both  premisses  their  common  term,  A; 
so  in  our  syllogism  the  conclusion  is  reached 
by  canceling  from  both  premisses  their  common 
term  “man,”  and  combining  what  remains. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  31 

The  difficulty,  as  logicians  have  pointed  out 
from  the  days  of  Pyrrho  to  those  of  Stuart 
Mill,  lies  in  this,  that  the  major  premiss  of  the 
syllogism  takes  for  granted  precisely  the  point 
to  be  proved;  for  if  Socrates  is  not  rational 
(and  since  no  one  questions  that  he  is  a  man) 
it  is  not  universally  true  that  man  is  a  rational 
animal.  Aristotle  would  reply,  no  doubt,  that 
where  an  individual  is  found  to  have  a  large 
number  of  qualities  characteristic  of  a  class 
(  Socrates  is  a  man”),  a  strong  presumption 
is  established  that  the  individual  has  the  other 
qualities  characteristic  of  the  class  (“rational¬ 
ity  ).  But  apparently  the  syllogism  is  not  a 
mechanism  for  the  discovery  of  truth  so  much 
as  for  the  clarification  of  exposition  and 
thought. 

All  this,  then,  like  the  many  other  items  of 
the  Organon,  has  its  value:  “Aristotle  has  dis¬ 
covered  and  formulated  every  canon  of  theoreti¬ 
cal  consistency,  and  every  artifice  of  dialectical 
debate,  with  an  industry  and  acuteness  which 
cannot  be  too  highly  extolled;  and  his  labors 
in  this  direction  have  perhaps  contributed  more 
than  any  other  single  writer  to  the  intellectual 


32  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

stimulation  of  after  ages.” 1  But  no  man  ever 
lived  who  could  lift  logic  to  a  lofty  strain:  a 
guide  to  correct  reasoning  is  as  elevating  as  a 
manual  of  etiquette;  iwe  may  use  it,  but  it 
hardly  spurs  us  to  nobility.  Not  even  the  brav¬ 
est  philosopher  would  sin£  to  a  book  of  logic 
underneath  the  bough.  One  always  feels  to¬ 
wards  logic  as  Virgil  bade  Dante  feel  towards 
those  wrho  had  been  damned  because  of  their 
colorless  neutrality:  Non  ragionam  di  lor,  ma 
guarda  e  passa — “Let  us  think  no  more  about 
them,  but  look  once  and  pass  on.”  * 


IV.  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  SCIENCE 

1.  GREEK  SCIENCE  BEFORE  ARISTOTLE 

“Socrates,”  says  Renan,2  “gave  philosophy  to 
mankind,  and  Aristotle  gave  it  science.  There 
was  philosophy  before  Socrates,  and  science  be¬ 
fore  Aristotle;  and  since  Socrates  and  since 
Aristotle,  philosophy  and  science  have  made  im¬ 
mense  advances.  But  all  has  been  built  upon 
the  foundation  which  they  laid.”  Before  Aris- 


yBenn,  i,  307. 

2Inferno,  iii,  60. 
aLife  of  Jesus,  ch.  28. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  33 

totle,  science  was  in  embryo;  with  him  it  was 
born. 

Earlier  civilizations  than  the  Greek  had  made 
attempts  at  science;  but  so  far  as  we  can  catch 
their  ^thought  through  their  still  obscure  cunei¬ 
form  and  hieroglyphic  script,  their  science  was 
indistinguishable  from  theology.  That  is  to 
say,  these  pre-Hellenic  peoples  explained  every 
obscure  operation  in  nature  by  some  supernat¬ 
ural  agency;  everywhere  there  were  gods.  Appar¬ 
ently  it  was  the  Ionian  Greeks  who  first  dared 
to  give  natural  explanations  of  cosmic  complex¬ 
ities  and  mysterious  events:  they  sought  in 
physics  the  natural  causes  of  particular  inci¬ 
dents,  and  in  philosophy  a  natural  theory  of 
the  whole.  Thales  (640-550  B.  C.),  the  “Father 
of  Philosophy,”  was  primarily  an  astronomer, 
who  astonished  the  natives  of  Miletus  by  in¬ 
forming  them  that  the  sun  and  stars  (which 
they  were  wont  to  worship  as  gods)  were  mere¬ 
ly  balls  of  fire.  His  pupil  Anaximander  (610- 
540  B.  C.),  the  first  Greek  to  make  astronomic 
and  geographical  charts,  believed  that  the  uni¬ 
verse  had  begun  as  an  undifferentiated  mass, 
from  which  all  things  had  arisen  by  the  separa¬ 
tion  of  opposites;  that  astronomic  history  peri- 


34  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

odically  repeated  itself  in  the  evolution  yand 
dissolution  of  an  infinite  number  of  worlds; 
that  the  earth  was  at  rest  in  space  by  a  balance 
of  internal  impulsions  (like  Buridan’s  ass); 
that  all  our  planet  had  once  been  fluid,  but  had 
been  evaporated  by  the  sun;  that  life  had  first 
been  formed  in  the  sea,  but  had  been  driven 
upon  the  land  by  the  subsidence  of  the  water; 
that  of  these  stranded  animals  some  had  devel¬ 
oped  the  capacity  to  breathe  air,  and  had  so  be¬ 
come  the  progenitors  of  all  later  land  life;  that 
man  could  not  from  the  beginning  have  been 
what  he  now  was,  for  if  man,  on  his  first  ap¬ 
pearance,  had  been  so  helpless  at  birth,  and  had/ 
required  so  long  an  adolescence,  as  in  these 
later  days,  he  could  not  possibly  have  survived. 
Anaximenes,  another  Milesian  (fl.  450  B.  C.), 
described  the  primeval  condition  of  things  as  a 
very  rarefied  mass,  gradually  condensing  into 
wind,  cloud,  water,  earth,  and  stone;  the  three 
forms  of  matter — gas,  liquid  and  solid — were 
progressive  stages  of  condensation;  heat  and 
cold  were  merely  rarefaction  and  condensation; 
earthquakes  were  due  to  the  solidification  of 
an  originally  fluid  earth;  life  and  soul  were 
one,  an  animating  and  expansive  force  present 


35 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 
in  everything  everywhere.  Anaxagoras  (500- 
428  B.  C.),  teacher  of  Pericles,  seems  to  have 
given  a  correct  explanation  of  solar  and  lunar 
eclipses;  he  discovered  the  processes  of  res¬ 
piration  in  plants  and  fishes;  and  he  explained 
man’s  intelligence  by  the  power  of  manipula¬ 
tion  that  came  when  the  fore-limbs  were  freed 
from  the  tasks  of  locomotion. 

Heraclitus  (530-470  B.C.),  who  left  wealth  and 
its  cares  to  live  a  life  of  poverty  and  study  in 
the  shade  of  the  temple  porticoes  at  Ephesus, 
turned  science  from  astronomy  to  earthlier  con¬ 
cerns.  All  things  forever  flow  and  change,  he 
said;  even  in  the  stillest  matter  there  is  un¬ 
seen  flux  and  movement.  Cosmic  history  runs 
in  repetitious  cycles,  each  beginning  and  end¬ 
ing  in  fire  (here  is  one  source  of  the  Stoic  and 
Christian  doctrine  of  last  judgment  and  hell). 
“Through  strife,”  says  Heraclitus,  “all  things 
arise  and  pass  away... War  is  the  father  and 
king  of  all:  some  he  has  made  gods,  and  some 
men;  some  slaves,  and  some  free.”  Where  there 
is  no  strife  there  is  decay:  “the  mixture  which 
is  not  shaken  decomposes.”  In  this  flux  of 
change  and  struggle  and  selection,  only  one 


36  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

thing  is  constant,  and  that  is  law.  “This  order, 
the  same  for  all  things,  no  one  of  gods  or  men 
has  made;  hut  it  always  was,  and  is,  and  shall 
he.” — Empedocles  (fl  445  B.  C.,  in  Sicily)  de¬ 
veloped  to  a  further  stage  the  idea  of  evolution.1 
Organs  arise  not  by  design  hut  hy  selection. 
Nature  makes  many  trials  and  experiments 

with  organisms,  combining  organs  variously; 

* 

where  the  combination  meets  environmental 
needs  the  organism  survives  and  perpetuates 
its  like;  where  the  combination  fails,  the  or¬ 
ganism  is  weeded  out;  as  time  goes  on,  or¬ 
ganisms  are  more  and  more  intricately  and 
successfully  adapted  to  their  surroundings. — 
Finally,  in  Leucippus  (fl.  445  B.  C.)  and  Demo¬ 
critus  (460-360),  master  and  pupil  in  Thracian 
Abdera,  we  get  the  last  stage  of  pre-Aristotelian 
science — materialistic,  deterministic  atomism. 
“Everything,”  said  Leucippus,  “is  driven 
by  necessity.”  “In  reality,”  says  Demo¬ 
critus,2  “there  are  only  atoms  and  the  void.” 
Perception  is  due  to  the  expulsion  of  atoms 

1Cf.  Osborn,  From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin;  and  M.  Ar¬ 
nold,  Empedocles  on  Etna. 

2Democritus  is  ranked  above  Plato  and  Aristotle  in 
Francis  Bacon’s  De  Principus  ( Philosophical  Works,  ed. 
Robertson,  London,  1905,  p.  650). 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  37 

from  the  object  upon  the  sense  organ.1  There 
is  or  have  been  or  will  be  an  infinite  number 
of  worlds;  at  every  moment  planets  are  collid¬ 
ing  and  dying,  and  new  worlds  are  rising  out 
of  chaos  by  the  selective  aggregation  of  atoms 
of  similar  size  and  shape.  There  is  no  design; 
the  universe  is  a  machine. 

This,  in  dizzy  and  superficial  summary,  is 
the  story  of  Greek  science  before  Aristotle.  Its 
cruder  items  can  be  well  forgiven  when  we  con¬ 
sider  the  narrow  circle  of  experimental  and  ob¬ 
servational  equipment  within  which  these  pion¬ 
eers  were  compelled  to  work.  The  stagnation 
of  Greek  industry  under  the  incubus  of  slavery 
prevented  the  full  development  of  these  mag¬ 
nificent  beginnings;  and  the  rapid  complica¬ 
tion  of  political  life  in  Athens  turned  the  Soph¬ 
ists  and  Socrates  and  Plato  away  from  these 
physical  and  biological  researches  into  the 
vaguer  paths  of  ethical  and  political  theory.  It 
is  one  of  the  many  glories  of  Aristotle  that 
he  was  broad  and  brave  enough  to  compass 
and  combine  these  two  lines  of  Greek  thought, 
the  physical  and  the  moral;  that  going  back 

returninge^nto'Sfavor.r^  °£  n°W  (thr0Ugk  Ei”s*ei"> 


38  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

beyond  his  teacher,  he  caught  again  the  thread 
of  scientific  development  in  the  pre-Socratic 
Greeks,  carried  on  their  work  with  more  reso¬ 
lute  detail,  and  more  varied  observation,  and 
brought  together  all  the  accumulated  results  in 
a  magnificent  body  of  organized  science. 

I 

...  /'  .4 

2.  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  NATURALIST 

If  we  begin  here  chronologically,  with  his 
Physics,  we  shall  be  disappointed;  for  we  find 
that  this  treatise  is  really  a  metaphysics,  an 
abstruse  analysis  of  matter,  motion,  space,  time, 
infinity,  cause,  and  other  such  “ultimate  con¬ 
cepts.”  One  of  the  more  lively  passages  is  an 
attack  on  Democritus’  “void”:  there  can  be  no 
void  or  vacuum  in  nature,  says  Aristotle,  for  in 
a  vacuum  all  bodies  would  fall  with  equal 
velocity;  this  being  impossible,  “the  supposed 
void  turns  out  to  have  nothing  in  it” — an  in¬ 
stance  at  once  of  Aristotle’s  very  occasional 
humor,  his  addiction  to  unproved  assumptions, 
and  his  tendency  to  disparage  his  predecessors 
in  philosophy.  It  was  the  habit  of  our  phi- 

* 

losopher  to  preface  his  works  with  historical 
sketches  of  previous  contributions  to  the  sub- 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  39 

JecMn  hand,  and  to  add  to  every  contribution 
an  annihilating  refutation.  “Aristotle,  after  the 
Ottoman  manner,”  says  Bacon,  “thought  he 
could  not  reign  secure  without  putting  all  his 
brethren  to  death.”1  But  to  this  fratricidal 
mania  we  owe  much  of  our  knowledge  of  pre- 
Socratic  thought. 

For  reasons  already  given,  Aristotle’s  astron¬ 
omy  represents  very  little  advance  upon  his 
predecessors.  He  rejects  the  view  of  Pytha¬ 
goras  (sixth  century  B.  C.)  that  the  sun  is  the 
center  of  our  system;  he  prefers  to  give  that 
honor  to  the  earth.  But  the  little  treatise  on 
'meteorology  is  full  of  brilliant  observations, 
and  even  its  speculations  strike  illuminating 
fire.  This  is  a  cyclic  world,  says  our  philoso¬ 
pher:  the  sun  forever  evaporates  the  sea,  dries 
up  rivers  and  springs,  and  transforms  at  last 
the  boundless  ocean  into  the  barest  rock;  while 
conversely  the  uplifted  moisture,  gathered  into 
clouds,  falls  and  renews  the  rivers  and  the 
seas.  Everywhere  change  goes  on,  impercept¬ 
ibly  but  effectively.  Egypt  is  “the  work  of  the 
Nile,”  the  product  of  its  deposits  through  a 


1 Advancement  of  Learning,  bk.  iii,  ck.  4. 


40  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

thousand  centuries.  Here  the  sea  encroaches 
upon  the  land,  there  the  land  reaches  out 
timidly  into  the  sea;  new  continents  and  new 
oceans  rise,  old  oceans  and  old  continents  dis¬ 
appear,  and  all  the  face  of  the  world  is  chang¬ 
ed  and  rechanged  in  a  great  systole  and  diastole 
of  growth  and  dissolution.  Sometimes  these 
vast  effects  occur  suddenly,  and  destroy  the 
geological  and  material  bases  of  civilization  and 
even  of  life;  great  catastrophes  have  periodical¬ 
ly  denuded  the  earth  and  reduced  man  again 
to  his  first  beginnings;  like  Sisyphus,  civiliza¬ 
tion  has  repeatedly  neared  its  zenith  only  to 
fall  back  into  barbarism  and  begin  da  capo  ita 

i 

upward  travail.  Hence  the  almost  “eternal  re¬ 
currence,”  in  civilization  after  civilization,  of 
the  same  inventions  and  discoveries,  the  same 
“dark  ages”  of  slow  economic  and  cultural  ac¬ 
cumulation,  the  same  rebirths  of  learning  and 
science  and  art.  No  doubt  some  popular  myth3 
are  vague  traditions  surviving  from  earlier 
cultures.  So  the  story  of  man  runs  in  a  dreary 
circle,  because  he  is  not  yet  master  of  the  earth 
that  holds  him. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 


3.  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  BIOLOGY 

It  is  not  so  with  life. 

As  Aristotle  walked  wondering  through  his 
great  zoological  garden,  he  became  convinced 
that  the  infinite  variety  of  life  could  be  ar¬ 
ranged  in  a  continuous  series  in  which  each 
link  would  be  almost  indistinguishable  from  the 
next.  In  all  respects,  whether  in  structure,  or 
mode  of  life,  or  reproduction  and  rearing,  or 
sensation  and  feeling,  there  are  minute  grada¬ 
tions  and  progressions  from  the  lowest  organ¬ 
isms' to  the  highest.  ‘  At  the  bottom  of  the  scale 
we  can  scarcely  divide  the  living  from  the 
“dead”:  “nature  makes  so  gradual  a  transition 
from  the  inanimate  to  the  animate,  kingdom 
that  the  boundary  lines  which  separate  them 
are  indistinct  and  doubtful”;  and  perhaps  a 
degree  of  life  exists  even  in  the  inorganic. 
Again,  many  species  cannot  with  certainty  be 
called  plants  or  animals.  And  as  in  these 
lower  organisms  it  is  almost  impossible  at  times 
to  assign  them  to  their  proper  genus  and  spe¬ 
cies,  so  similar  are  they;  so  in  every  order  of 

iHist.  Animalium,  viii. 


41  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

life  the  continuity  of  gradations  and  differences 
is  as  remarkable  as  the  diversity  of  functions 
and  forms.  But  in  the  midst  of  this  bewilder¬ 
ing  richness  of  structures  certain  things  stand 
out  convincingly:  that  life  has  grown  steadily 
in  complexity  and  in  power;1  that  intelligence 
has  progressed  in  correlation  with  complexity 
of  structure  and  mobility  of  form; 2  that  there 
has  been  an  increasing  specialization  of  func¬ 
tion,  and  a  continuous  centralization  of  physio¬ 
logical  control. 3  Slowdy  life  created  for  itself 
a  nervous  system  and  a  brain;  and  mind  moved 
resolutely  on  towards  the  mastery  of  its  en¬ 
vironment. 

The  remarkable  fact  here  is  that  with  all 
these  gradations  and  similarities  leaping  to 
Aristotle’s  eyes,  he  does  not  come  to  the  theory 
of  evolution.  He  rejects  Empedocles’  doctrine 
that  all  organs  and  organisms  are  a  survival 
of  the  fittest,4  and  Anaxagoras’  idea  that  man 
became  intelligent  by  using  his  hands  for  ma¬ 
nipulation  rather  than  for  movement;  Aristotle 
thinks,  on  the  contrary,  that  man  so  used  his 

1 De  Anima,  ii,  2. 

2De  Parhbus  Ammalium,  i,  7;  ii,  10. 

sIbid.,  iv,  5-6. 

4De  Anima,  ii,  4. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  43 

hands  because  he  had  become  intelligent.1  In¬ 
deed,  Aristotle  makes  as  many  mistakes  as  pos¬ 
sible  for  a  man  who  is  founding  the  science  of 
biology.  He  thinks,  for  example,  that  the  male 
element  in  reproduction  merely  stimulates  and 
quickens;  it  does  not  occur  to  him  (what  we 
now  know  from  experiments  in  partheno¬ 
genesis)  that  the  essential  function  of  the  sperm 
is  not  so  much  to  fertilize  the  ovum  as  to  pro¬ 
vide  the  embryo  with  the  heritable  qualities 
of  the  male  parent,  and  so  permit  the  offspring 
to  be  a  vigorous  variant,  a  new  admixture  of 
two  ancestral  lines.  As  human  dissection  was 
not  practised  in  his  time,  he  is  particularly  fer¬ 
tile  in  physiological  errors:  he  knows  nothing 
of  muscles,  not  even  of  their  existence;  he  does 
not  distinguish  arteries  from  veins;  he  thinks 
the  brain  is  an  organ  for  cooling  the  blood; 
he  believes,  forgivably,  that  man  has  more  su¬ 
tures  in  the  skull  than  woman;  he  believes,  less 
forgivably,  that  man  has  only  eight  ribs  on 
each  side;  he  believes,  incredibly  and  unfor¬ 
givably,  that  woman  has  fewer  teeth  than 
man.2  Apparently  Aristotle's  relations  with 
women  were  of  the  most  amicable  kind. 

1De  Part.  An.,  iv.  10. 

AGomperzf  iv,  57;  Zeller,  i,  262,  note;  Lewes,  158,  165, 
etc. 


44  •  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

Yet  he  makes  a  greater  total  advance  in 
biology  than  any  Greek  before  or  after  him. 
He  perceives  that  birds  and  reptiles  are  near 
allied  in  structure;  that  the  monkey  is  in  form 
intermediate  between  quadrupeds  and  man;  and 
once  he  boldly  declares  that  man  belongs  i£ 
one  group  of  animals  with  the  viviparous  quad¬ 
rupeds  (our  ‘'mammals”).  1  He  remarks  that 
the  soul  in  infancy  is  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  the  soul  of  animals.2  He  makes  the  il¬ 
luminating  observation  that  diet  often  de¬ 
termines  the  mode  of  life;  “for  of  beasts  some 
are  gregarious,  and  others  solitary — they  live 
in  the  way  which  is  best  adapted  to  .  v  .  obtain 
the  food  of  their  choice.”3  He  anticipates  Von 
Baer’s  famous  law  that  characters  common  to 
the  genus  (like  eyes  and  ears)  appear  in  the 
developing  organism  before  characters  peculiar 
to  its  species  (like  the  “formula”  of  the 
teeth),  or  to  its  individual  self  (like  the  final 
color  of  the  eyes);4  and  he  reaches  out  across 
two  thousand  years  to  anticipate  Spencer’s  gen¬ 
eralization  that  individuation  varies  inversely  as 

1Hist.  An.  i,  6;  ii,  3. 

2Ibid.,  viii,  .1. 

s Politics ,  i,  8. 

1Hist.  An.  i,  G;  ii,  8. 


45 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

genesis— that  is,  that  the  more  highly  developed 
and  specialized  a  species  or  an  individual  hap¬ 
pens  to  be,  the  smaller  will  be  the  number  of  its 
offspring.1  He  notices  and  explains  reversion 
to  type — the  tendency  of  a  prominent  variation 
(like  genius)  to  be  diluted  in  mating  and  lost 
in  •  successive  generations.  He  makes  many 
zoological  observations  which,  temporarily  re¬ 
jected  by  later  biologists,  have  been  confirmed 
by  modern  research — of  fishes  that  make  nests, 
for  example,  and  a  species  of  shark  that  boasts 
of  a  placenta. 

And  finally  he  establishes  the  science  of  em¬ 
bryology.  “He  who  sees  things  grow  from  their 
beginning,”  he  writes,  “will  have  the  finest 
view  of  them.”  Hippocrates  (b.  460  B.  C.), 
greatest  of  Greek  physicians,  had  given  a  fine 
example  of  the  experimental  method,  by  break¬ 
ing  a  hen’s  eggs  at  various  stages  of  incubation; 
and  had  applied  the  results  of  these  studies  in 
his  treatise  “On  the  Origin  of  the  Child.”  Aris¬ 
totle  followed  this  lead  and  performed  experi¬ 
ments  which  enabled  him  to  give  a  description 
of  the  development  of  the  chick  which  even 


i De  Generation#  A niinaliwn,  ii,  12. 


46  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

today  arouses  the  admiration  of  embryologists.1 
He  must  have  performed  some  novel  experi¬ 
ments  in  genetics,  for  he  disproves  the  theory 
that  the  sex  o^  the  child  depends  on  what  testis 
supplies  the  reproductive  fluid,  by  quoting  a 
case  where  the  right  testis  of  the  father  had 
been  tied  and  yet  the  children  had  been  of 
different  sexes.2  He  raises  some  very  modern 
problems  of  heredity.  A  woman  of  Elis  had  , 
married  a  negro;  her  children  were  all  whites, 
but  in  the  next  generation  negroes  reappeared; 
where,  asks  Aristotle,  was  the  blackness  hidden 
in  the  middle  generation?3  There  was  but  a 
step  from  such  a  vital  and  intelligent  query  to 
the  epochal  experiments  of  Gregor  Mendel  (1822- 
1882).  Prudens  quaestio  dimidium  scientiae — 
to  know  what  to  ask  is  already  to  know  half. 
Surely,  despite  the  errors  that  mar  these  bio¬ 
logical  works,  they  form  the  greatest  monument 
ever  raised  to  the  science  by  any  one  man. 
When  we  consider  that  before  Aristotle  there 
had  been,  so  far  as  we  know,  no  biology  beyond 
scattered  observations,  we  perceive  that  this 

1 LTe  Part.  An.,  Hi,  ,4. 

2Lewes,  112. 

3Gomperz,  iv,  169. 


47 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

achievement  alone  might  have  sufficed  for  one 
life-time,  and  would*  have  given  immortality. 
But  Aristotle  had  only  begun. 

V.  METAPHYSICS  AND  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD 

His  metaphysics  grew  out  of  his  biology. 
Everything  in  the  world  is  moved  by  an  inner 
urge  to  become  something  greater  than  it  is. 
Everything  is  both  the  form  or  reality  which 
has  grown  out  of  something  which  was  its 
matter  or  raw  material;  and  it  may  in  its  turn 
be  the  matter  out  of  which  still  higher  forms 
will  grow.  So  the  man  is  the  form  of  which 
the  child  was  the  matter;  the  child  is  the  form 
and  its  embryo  the  matter;  the  embryo^the 
form,  the  ovum  the  matter;  and  so  back  till  we 
reach  in  a  vague  way  the  conception  of  matter 
without  form  at  all.  But  such  a  formless  mat¬ 
ter  would  be  no-thing,  for  every  thing  has  a 
form.  Matter,  in  its  widest  sense,  is  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  form;  and  form  is  the  actuality,  the 
finished  reality,  of  matter.  Matter  obstructs, 
form  constructs.  Form  is  not  merely  the  shape 
but  the  shaping  force,  an  inner  necessity  and 


48  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

impulse  which  moulds  mere  material  to 
specific  figure  and  purpose;  it  is  the  realizati 
of  a  potential  capacity  of  matter;  it  is  the  st 
of  the  powers  residing  in  anything  to  do,  to 
or  to  become.  Nature  is  the  conquest  of  mat 
by  form,  the  constant  progression  and  viqt< 
of  life.1 

Everything  in  the  world  moves  naturally 
a  specific  fulfilment.  Of  the  varied  car 
which  determine  an  event,  the  final  ca 
which  determines  the  purpose,  is  the  most 
eisive  and  important.  The  mistakes  and  fu 
ties  of  nature  are  due  to  the  inertia  of  ma 
resisting  the  forming  force  of  purpose — h< 
the  abortions  and  the  monsters  that  mar 
panorama  of  life.  Development  is  not  haphaz 
or  accidental  (else  how  could  we  explain 
almost  universal  appearance  and  transmis* 
of  useful  organs?);  everything  is  guided  i 
certain  direction  from  within,  by  its  nal 

1Half  of  our  readers  will  be  pleased,  and  the  < 
half  amused,  to  learn  that  among  Aristotle’s  favorite 
amples  of  matter  and  form  are  woman  and  man;  the 
is  the  active,  formative  principle;  the  female  is  pa 
clay,  waiting  to  be  formed.  Female  offspring  are 
result'  of  the  failure  of  form  to  dominate  matter 
Gen.  An.,  i,  2). 


49 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

structure  and  entelechy;1  the  egg  of  the 
is  internally  designed  or  destined  to  be- 
5  not  a  duck  but  a  chick;  the  acorn  becomes 
a  willow  but  an  oak.  This  does  not  mean 
Aristotle  that  there  is  an  external  provi- 
e  designing  earthly  structures  and  events; 
?r  the  design  is  internal,  and  arises  from 
type  and  function  of  the  thing.  “Divine 
idence  coincides  completely  for  Aristotle 
the  operation  of  natural  causes.”3 
t  there  is  a  God,  though  not  perhaps  the 
le  and  human  god  conceived  by  the  for- 
)le  anthropomorphism  of  the  adolescent 
l.  Aristotle  approaches  the  problem  from 
old  puzzle  about  motion — how,  he  asks, 
motion  begin?  He  will  not  accept  the 
bility  that  motion  is  as  beginningless  as 
:onceive3  matter  to  be:  matter  may  be 
lal,  because  it  is  merely  the  everlasting 
[bility  of  future  forms;  but  when  and  how 
that  vast  process  of  motion  and  formation 

itelecheia — having  {echo)  its  purpose  ( telos )  within 
s) ;  one  of  those  magnificent  Aristotelian  terms 
l  gather  up  into  themselves  a  whole  philosophy.  The 
med  reader  need  not  be  reminded  that  the  “ortho- 
”  school  of  evolutionists  finds  its  first'  formulation 
ese  passages  of  Aristotle. 

thics,  i,  10;  Zeller,  ii,  329. 


50  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

begin  which  at  last  filled  the  wide  universe 
with  an  infinity  of  shapes?  Surely  motion  has 
a  source,  says  Aristotle;  and  if  we  are  not  to 
plunge  drearily  into  an  infinite  regress,  putting 
back  our  problem  step  by  step,  endlessly,  we 
must  posit  a  prime  mover  unmoved  ( primum 

i 

mobile  immotum),  a  being  incorporeal,  indi- 
% 

visible,  spaceless,  sexless,  passionless,  change¬ 
less,  perfect  and  eternal.  God  does  not  create, 
but  he  moves,  the  world;  and  he  moves  it  not 
as  a  mechanical  force  but  as  the  total  motive 
of  all  operations  in  the  world;  “God  moves  the 
world  as  the  beloved  object  moves  the  lover.”1 
He  is  the  final  cause  of  nature,  the  drive  and 
purpose  of  things,  the  form  of  the  world;  the 
principle  of  its  life,  the  sum  of  its  vital  pro¬ 
cesses  and  powers,  the  inherent  goal  of  its 
-growth,  the  energizing  entelechy  of  the  whole. 
He  is  pure  energy;2  the  Scholastic  Actus  Purus 
— activity  per  se ;  perhaps  the  mystic  “Force” 
of  modern  physics  and  philosophy.  He  is  noc 
so  much  a  person  as  a  magnetic  power.3 

Yet,  with  his  usual  inconsistency,  Arlstoue 


1 Metaphysics ,  ix,  7. 

-Ibid.,  xii,  8. 

3C»rant.  173. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  U 

:*pr«**nta  God  as  self-conscious  spirit.  A  rath¬ 
er  mysterious  spirit;  for  Aristotle’s  God  never 
floes  anything;  he  has.no  desires,  no  will,  no 
purpose;  he  is  activity  so  pure  that  he  never 
acts.  He  is  absolutely  perfect;  therefore  he 
cannot  desire  anything;  therefore  he  does  noth¬ 
ing.  His  only  occupation  is  to  contemplate 
the  essence  of  things;  and  since  he  himself  is 
the  essence  of  all  things,  the  form  of  all  forms, 
Ms  sole  employment  is  the  contemplation  of 
himself.1  Poor  Aristotelian  God!— he  is  a  roi- 
faintant,  a  do-nothing  king;  “the  king  reigns, 
but  he  does  not  rule.’’  No  wonder  the  British 
like  Aristotle;  his  God  is  obviously  copied  from 
their  king. 

Or  from  Aristotle  himself.  Our  philosopher 
so  loved  contemplation  that  he  sacrificed  to  it 
Ms  conception  of  divinity.  His  God  is  of  the 
luiet  Aristotelian  tjype,  nothing  romantic,  with¬ 
drawn  to  his  ivory  tower  from  the  strife  and 
stain  of  things;  all  the  world  away  from  the 
philosopher-kings  of  Plato,  or  from  the  stern 
flesh-and-blood  reality  of  Yahveh,  or  the  gentle 
and  solicitous  fatherhood  of  the  Christian  God. 


1 Meta .  xii  ,  8;  Ethics,  x„  8, 


52 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLB 


* 

VI.  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE  NATURE  OF  AR1 

Aristotle’s  psychology  is  marred  with  similar 
obscurity  and  vacillation.  There  are  many  in¬ 
teresting  passages:  the  power  of  habit  is  em¬ 
phasized,  and  is  for  the  first  time  called  “sec¬ 
ond  nature”;  and  the  laws  of  association, 
though  not  developed,  find  here  a  definite  for¬ 
mulation.  But  both  the  crucial  problems  of 
Philosophical  psychology— the  freedom  of  the 
will  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul— are  left 
in  haze  -and  doubt.  Aristotle  talks  at  times 
like  a  determinist — “We  cannot  directly  will 
to  be  different  from  what  we  are”;  but  he  goes 
on  to  argue,  against  determinism,  that  we  can 
choose  what  we  shall  be,  by  choosing  now  the 
environment  that  shall  mould  us;  so  we  art 
free  in  the  sense  that  we  mould  our  own  char¬ 
acters  by  our  choice  of  friends,  books,  occupa¬ 
tions,  and  amusements.1  He  does  not  anticipate 
the  determinist’s  ready  reply  that  these  forma¬ 
tive  choices  are  themselves  determined  by  our 
antecedent  character,  and  this  at  last  by  un- 


1 Ethics ,  iii,  7. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  1 63 

chosen  heredity  and  early  environment.  He 
presses  the  point  that  our  persistent  use  of 
praise  and  blame  presupposes  moral  responsi¬ 
bility  and  free  will;  it  does  not  occur  to  him 
that  the  determinist  might  reach  from  the 
same  premisses  a  precisely  opposite  conclusion 
— that  praise  and  blame  are  given  that  they 
may  be  part  of  the  factors  determining  subse¬ 
quent  action. 

Aristotle's  theory  of  the  soul  begins  with  an 
interesting  definition.  The  soul  is  the  entire 
vital  principle  of  any  organism,  the  sum  of  its 
powers  and  processes.  In  plants  the  soul  is 
merely  a  nutritive  and  reproductive  power,  in 
animals  it  is  also  a  sensitive  and  locomotor 
power;  in  man  it  is  as  well  the  power  of  reason 
and  thought.1  The  soul,  as  the  sum  of  the 
powers  of  the  body,  cannot  exist  without  it, 
the  two  are  as  form  and  wax,  separable  only 
in  thought,  but  in  reality  one  organic  whole; 
the  soul  is  not  put  into  the  body  like  the  quick¬ 
silver  inserted  by  Daedalus  into  the  images  of 
Venus  to  make  “stand-ups”  of  them.  A  personal 
and  particular  soul  can  exist  only  in  its  own 
body.  Nevertheless  the  soul  is  not;  material, 


1De  Amina »  ii. 


■  fj  / 1!  in  i 

54  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

1  as  Democritus  would  have  it;  nor  does  it  all 
die.  Part  of  the  rational  power  of  the  human 
soul  is  passive:  it  is  bound  up  with  memory, 
and  dies  with  the  body  that  bore  the  memory; 
but  the  “active  reason,”  the  pure  power  of 
thought,  is  independent  of  memory  and  is  un¬ 
touched  with  decay.  The  active  reason  is  the 
universal  as  distinguished  from  the  individual 
element  in  man;  what  survives  is  not  the  per¬ 
sonality,  with  its  transitory  affections  and  de¬ 
sires,  but  mind  in  its  most  abstract  and  im¬ 
personal  form.1  In  short,  Aristotle  destroys  the 
soul  in  order  to  give  it  immortality;  the  im¬ 
mortal  soul  is  “pure  thought,”  undefiled  with 
reality,  just  as  Aristotle's  God  is  pure  activity, 
undefiled  with  action.  Let  him  who  can,  be 
comforted  with  this  theology.  One  wonders 
sometimes  whether  this  metaphysical  eating  of 
one’s  cake  and  keeping  it  is  not  Aristotle’s  sub¬ 
tle  way  of  saving  himself  from  anti-Macedonian 
hemlock? 

In  a  safer  field  of  psychology  he  writes  more 
originally  and  to  the  point,  and  almost  creates 
the  study  of  esthetics,  the  theory  of  beauty  and 
art.  Artistic  creation,  says  Aristotle,  springs 


1De  Amina,  ii,  4;  i,  4;  iii,  5- 


55 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

'from  tht  formative  impulse  and  the  craving  for 
emotional  expression.  Essentially  the  form  of 
art  is  an  imitation  of  reality;  it  holds  the  mir¬ 
ror  up  to  nature. 1  There  is  in  man  a  pleasure 
in  imitation,  apparently  missing  in  lower  ani¬ 
mals.  Yet  the  aim  of  art  is  to  represent  not 
the  outward  appearance  of  things,  but  their 
inward  significance;  for  this,  and  not  the  ex- 
ternal  mannerism  and  detail,  is  their  reality. 
There  may  be  more  human  verity  in  the  sternly 
classic  moderation  of  the  (E  dipus  Rex  than  in 
all  the  realistic  tears  of  the  Trojan  Women. 

The  noblest  art  appeals  to  the  intellect  as 
well  as  to  the  feelings  (as  a  symphony  appeals 
to  us  not  only  by  its  harmonies  and  sequences 
but  by  its  structure  and  development) ;  and 
this  intellectual  pleasure  is  the  highest  form 
of  joy  to  which  a  man  can  rise.  Hence  a  work 
of  art  should  aim  at  form,  and  above  all  at 
unity,  which  is  the  backbone  of  structure  and 
the  focus  of  form.  A  drama,  e.g.,  should  have 
unity  of  action:  there  should  be  no  confusing 
sub-plots,  nor  any  digressive  episodes. 2  But 

1 Poetics ,  i,  1447. 

2Aristotle  gives  only  one  sentence  to  unity  of  time; 
and  does  not  mention  unity  of  place;  so  that  the  “three 
unities”  commonly  foisted  upon  him  are  later  inventions 
(Norwood,  Greek  Tragedy,  p.  42,  note). 


'  '<  1  >'  i  A  . 

56  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

above  all,  the  function  of  art  is  catharsis,  puri¬ 
fication:  emotions  accumulated  in  us  under 
the  pressure  of  social  restraints,  and  liable  to 

sudden  issue  in  unsocial  and  destructive  action, 

. 

are  touched  off  and  sluiced  away  in  the  harm-f 
less  form  of  theatrical  excitement;  so  tragedy, 
“through  pity  and  fear,  effects  the  proper  pur¬ 
gation  of  these  emotions.”1  Aristotle  misses 
certain  features  of  tragedy  (e.  g.,  the  conflict  of 
principles  and  personalities) ;  but  in  this  theory 
of  catharsis  he  has  made  a  suggestion  endlessly 
fertile  in  the  understanding  of  the  almost  mys¬ 
tic  power  of  art.  It  is  an  illuminating  instance 
of  his  ability  to  enter  every  field  of  speculation, 
and  to  adorn  whatever  he  touches. 


VII.  ETHICS  AND  THE  NATURE  OF 
HAPPINESS 

And  yet,  as  Aristotle  developed,  and  young 
men  crowded  about  him  to  be  taught  and 
formed,  more  and  more  his  mind  turned  from 
the  details  of  science  to  the  larger  and  vaguer 
problems  of  conduct  and  character.  It  came  to 


1 Poetics ,  vi,  1449. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE,  57 

him  more  clearly  that  above  all  questions  of 
the  physical  world  there  loomed  the  question 
of  questions — what  is  the  best  life? — what  is 
life’s  supreme  good? — what  is  virtue? — how 
shall  we  find  happiness  and  fulfilment? 

He  is  realistically  simple  in  his  ethics.  His 
scientific  training  keeps  him  from  the  preach¬ 
ment  of  superhuman  ideals  and  empty  counsels 
of  perfection.  “In  Aristotle,”  says  Santayana, 
“the  conception  of  human  nature  is  perfectly 
sound;  every  ideal  has  a  natural  basis,  and 
everything  natural  has  an  ideal  development.”  * 
Aristotle  begins  by  frankly  recognizmg  that  the 
aim  of  life  is  not  goodness  for  its  own  sake,  but 
happiness.  “For  we  choose  happiness  for  it¬ 
self,  and  never  with  a  view  to  anything  fur¬ 
ther;  whereas  we  choose  honor,  pleasure,  intel¬ 
lect. ..  .because  we  believe  that  through  them 
we  shall  be  made  happy.”1  But  he  realizes 
that  to  call  happiness  the  supreme  good  is  a 
mere  truism;  what  is  wanted  is  some  clearer 
account  of  the  nature  of  happiness,  and  the  way 
to  it.  He  hopes  to  find  this  way  by  asking 
wherein  man  differs  from  other^  beings;  and 
by  presuming  that  man’s  happiness  will  lie  in 


1 Ethics ,  i,  7. 


58  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

the  full  functioning  of  this  specifically  human 
quality.  Now  the  peculiar  excellence  of  man 
is  his  power  of  thought;  it  is  hy  this  that  he 
surpasses  and  rules  all  other  forms  of  life;  and 
as  the  growth  of  this  faculty  has  given  him  his 
supremacy,  so,  we  may  presume,  its  develop¬ 
ment  will  give  him  fulfilment  and  happiness. 

The  chief  condition  of  happiness,  then,  bar¬ 
ring  certain  physical  pre-requisites,  is  the  life  of 
reason — the  specific  glory  and  power  of  man. 
Virtue,  or  rather  excellence, 1  will  depend  on 
clear  judgment,  self-control,  symmetry  of  de¬ 
sire,  artistry  of  means;  it  is  not  the  possession 
of  the  simple  man,  nor  the  gift  of  innocent  in¬ 
tent,  but  the  achievement  of  experience  in  the 
fully  developed  man.  Yet  there  is  a  road  to  it, 
a  guide  to  excellence,  which  may  save  many 
detours  and  delays:  it  is  the  middle  way,  the 
golden  mean.  The  qualities  of  character  can  be 
arranged  in  triads,  in  each  of  which  the  first 


VThe  word  excellence  is  probably  the  fittest  translation 
of  the  Greek  arete,  usually  mistranslated  virtue.  The 
reader  will  avoid  misunderstanding  Plato  and  Afistotle  if, 
where  translators  write  virtue,  he  will  substitute  excel¬ 
lence,  ability,  or  capacity.  The  Greek  arete  is  the  Roman 
virtus ;  both  imply  a  masculine  sort  of  excellence  (Ares, 
god  of  war;  vir,  a  male).  Classical  antiquity  conceived 
virtue  in  terms  of  man,  just  as  medieval  Christianity 
conceived  it  in  terms  of  woman. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  5  9 

and  last  qualities  will  be  extremes  and  vices, 
and  the  middle  quality  a  virtue  or  an  excellence. 
So  between  cowardice  and  rashness  is  courage; 
between  stinginess  and  extravagance  is  liber¬ 
ality;  between  sloth  and  greed  is  ambition; 
between  humility  and  pride,  is  modesty;  be¬ 
tween  secrecy  and  loquacity,  honesty;  between 
moroseness  and  buffoonery,  good  humor;  be¬ 
tween  quarrelsomeness  and  flattery,  friendship; 
between  Hamlet’s  indecisiveness  and  Quixote’s 
impulsiveness  is  self-control.1  “Right,”  then, 
in  ethics  or  conduct,  is  not  different  from 
“right”  in  mathematics  or  engineering;  it 
means  correct,  fit,  what  works  best  to  the  best 
result.  The  golden  mean,  however,  is  not,  like 
the  mathematical  mean,  an  exact  average  of  two 
precisely  calculable  extremes ;  it  fluctuates  with 
the  collateral  circumstances  of  each  situation, 
and  discovers  itself  only  to  mature  and  flexible 
reason.  Excellence  is  an  art  won  by  training 
and  habituation:  we  do  not  act  rightly  because 
we  have  virtue  or  excellence,  but  we  rather  have 
these  because  we  have  acted  rightly;  “these  vir¬ 
tues  are  formed  in  man  by  his  doing  the  ac- 


xEthics,  i,  7. 


60  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

tions”;  1  we  are  what  we  repeatedly  do.  Ex¬ 
cellence,  then,  is  not  an  act  but  a  habit:  “the 
good  of  man  is  a  working  of  the  soul  in  the  way 
of  excellence  in  a  complete  life: ...  .for  as  it  is 
not  one  swallow  or  one  fine  day  that  makes  a 
spring,  so  it  is  not  one  day  or  a  short  time  that 
makes  a  man  blessed  and  happy.”2 

Youth  is  the  age  of  extremes:  “if  the  young 
commit  a  fault  it  is  always  on  the  side  of  ex¬ 
cess  and  exaggeration.”  The  great  difficulty 
of  youth  (and  of  many  of  youth’s  elders)  is  to 
get  out  of  one  extreme  without  falling  into  its 
opposite.  For  one  extreme  easily  passes  into 
the  other,  whether  through  “over-correction”  or 
elsewise:  insincerity  doth  protest  too  much,  and 
humility  hovers  on  the  precipice  of  conceit.3 
Those  who  are  consciously  at  one  extreme  will 
give  the  name  of  virtue  not  to  the  mean  but 
to  the  opposite  extreme.  Sometimes  this  is 
well;  for  if  we  are  conscious  of  erring  in  one 
extreme  “we  should  aim  at  the  other,  and  so 
we  may  reach  the  middle  position, . as  men 

rEthics,  ii,  4. 

*lbid,  i,  7. 

s“The  vanity  of  Antishenes”  the  Cynic,  said  Plato, 
“peeps  out  through  the  holes  in  his  cloak.” 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  «1 

do  in  straightening  hent  timber.” 1  But  uncon¬ 
scious  extremists  look  upon  the  golden  mean 
as  the  greatest  vice;  they  “expel  towards  each 
other  the  man  in  the  middle  position;  the 
brave  man  is  called  rash  by  the  coward,  and 
cowardly  by  the  rash  man,  and  in  other  cases 
accordingly”; a  so  in  modern  politics  the  “lib¬ 
eral”  is  called  “conservative”  hnd  “radical”  by 
th©  radical  and  the  conservative. 

It  is  obvious  that  this  doctrine  of  the  mean 
is  the  formulation  of  a  characteristic  attitude 
which  appears  in  almost  every  system  of  Greek 
philosophy.  Plato  had  had  it  in  mind  when  he 
called  virtue  harmonious  action;  Socrates  when 
he  identified  virtue  with  knowledge.  The  Seven 
Wise  Men  had  established  the  tradition  by  en¬ 
graving,  on  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi,  the 
motto  meden  agan, — nothing  in  excess.  Per¬ 
haps,  as  Nietzsche  claims,* 7  8  all  these  were  at¬ 
tempts  of  the  Greeks  to  check  their  own  vio¬ 
lence  and  impulsiveness  of  character;  more 
truly,  they  reflected  the  Greek  feeling  that  pas¬ 
sions  are  not  of  themselves  vices,  but  the  raw 

1Ethics,  ii,  9. 

7Ibid.,  ii,  8. 

*The  Birth  of  Tragedy < 


62  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

material  of  both  vice  and  virtue,  according  as 
they  function  in  excess  and  disproportion,  or  in 
measure  and  harmony.1  / 

But  the  golden  mean,  says  our  matter-of-fact 
philosopher,  is  not  all  of  the  secret  of  happi¬ 
ness.  We  must  have,  too,  a  fair  degree  of  world¬ 
ly  goods:  poverty  makes  one  stingy  and  grasp¬ 
ing;  while  possessions  give  one  that  freedom 
from  care  and  greed  which  is  the  source  of 
aristocratic  ease  and  charm.  The  noblest  of 
these  external  aids  to  happiness  is  friendship. 
Indeed,  friendship  is  more  necessary  to  the 
happy  than  to  the  unhappy;  for  happiness  is 

multiplied  by  being  shared.  It  is  more  im- 

•  , 

portant  than  justice:  for  “when  men  are 
friends,  justice  is  unnecessary;  but  when  men 
are  just,  friendship  is  still  a  boon.”  “A  friend 
is  one  soul  in  two  bodies.”  Yet  friendship  im¬ 
plies  few  friends  rather  than  many;  “he  who 
has  many  friends  has  no  friend”;  and  “to  be 

1Cf.  a  sociological  formulation  of  the  same  idea:  “Values 
are  never  absolute,  but  only  relative.  ...  A  certain 
quality  in  human  nature  is  deemed  to  be  less  abundant 
than  it  ought  to  be;  therefore  we  place  a  value  upon  it, 
and  .  .  .  encourage  and  cultivate  it.  As  a  result  of 
this  valuation  we  call  it  a  virtue;  but'  if  the  same  quality 
should  become  superabundant  we  should  call  it  a  vice  and 
try  to  repress  it.” — Carver,  Essays  in  Social  Justice. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  63 

a  friend  to  many  people  in  the  way  of  perfect 
friendship  is  impossible.”  Fine  friendship  re¬ 
quires  duration  rather  than  fitful  intensity; 
and  this  implies  stability  of  character;  it  is  to 
altered  character  that  we  must  attribute  the 
dissolving  kaleidoscope  of  friendship.  And 
friendship  requires  equality;  for  gratitude  gives 
it  at  best  a  slippery  basis.  “Benefactors  are 
commonly  held  to  have  more  friendship  for  the 
objects  of  their  kindness  than  these  for  them. 

The  account  of  the  matter  which  satisfies  most 
persons  is  that  the  one  are  debtors  and  the 
others  creditors,. .  .and  that  the  debtors  wish 
their  creditors  out  of  the  way,  while  the  credi¬ 
tors  are  anxious,  that  their  debtors  should  be 
preserved.”  Aristotle  rejects  this  interpreta¬ 
tion;  he  prefers  to  believe  that  the  greater  tend¬ 
erness  of  the  benefactor  is  to  be  explained  on 
the  analogy  of  the  artist’s  affection  for  his 
work,  or  the  mother’s  for  her  child.  We  love 
that  which  we  have  made.1 

And  yet,  though  external  goods  and  relation¬ 
ships  are  necessary  to  happiness,  its  essence  re¬ 
mains  within  us,  in  rounded  knowledge  and 


i-Etlrics,  viii  and  ix. 


64  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

clarity  of  soul.  Surely  sense  pleasure  is  not 
the  way:  that  road  is  a  circle;  as  Socrates 
phrased  the  coarser  Epicurean  idea,  we  scratch 
that  we  may  itch,  and  itch  that  we  may  scratch. 
Nor  can  a  political  career  he  the  way;  for  there¬ 
in  we  walk  subject  to  the  whims  of  the  people; 
and  nothing  is  so  fickle  as  the  crowd.  No,  hap¬ 
piness  must  be  a  pleasure  of  the  mind;  and  we 
may  trust  it  only  when  it  comes  from  the  pur¬ 
suit  or  the  capture  of  truth.  “The  operation  of 
the  intellect. .  .aims  at  no  end  beyond  itself, 
and  finds  in  itself  the  pleasure  which  stimu¬ 
lates  it  to  further  operation;  and  since  the  at¬ 
tributes  of  self-sufficiency,  unweariedness,  and 
capacity  for  rest,. .  .plainly  belong  to  this  oc¬ 
cupation,  in  it  must  lie  perfect  happiness.”1 

Aristotle’s  ideal  man,  however,  is  no  mere 
metaphysician.  “He  does  not  expose  himself 
needlessly  to  danger,  since  there  are  few  things 
for  which  he  cares  sufficiently;  but  he  is  will¬ 
ing,  in  great  crises,  to  give  even  his  life, — 
knowing  that  under  certain  conditions  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  live.  He  is  of  a  disposition  to  do 
men  service,  though  he  is  ashamed  to  have  a 
service  done  to  him.  To  confer  a  kindness  is  a 


1 Ethics ,  x,  7. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  6o 

mark  o£  superiority;  to  receive  one  is  a  mark 
of  subordination. .  .He  does  not  take  part  in 
public  displays. .  .He  is  open  in  his  dislikes  and 
preferences;  he  talks  and  acts  ft ankly,  because 
of  his  contempt  for  men  and  things... He  is 
never  fired  with  admiration,  since  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  great  in  his  eyes.  He  cannot  live  in  com¬ 
plaisance  with  others,  except  it  be  a  friend; 
complaisance  is  the  characteristic  of  a  slave. . 

He  never  feels  malice,  and  always  forgets  and 
passes  over  injuries. .  .He  is  not  fond  of  talk¬ 
ing...  It  is  no  concern  of  his  that  he  should 
be"  praised,  or  that  others  should  be  blamed. 
He  does  not  speak  evil  of  others,  even  of  his 
enemies,  unless  it  be  to  themselves.  His  car¬ 
riage  is  sedate,  his  voice  deep,  his  speech  meas¬ 
ured;  he  is  not  given  to  hurry,  for  he  is  con¬ 
cerned  about  only  a  few  things;  he  Is  not  prone 
to  vehemence,  for  he  thinks  nothing  very  im¬ 
portant.  A  shrill  voice  and  hasty  steps  come 
to  a  man  through  care. .  .He  bears  the  accidents 
of  life  with  dignity  and  grace,  making  the  best 
of  his  circumstances,  like  a  skilful  general  who 
marshals  his  limited  forces  with  all  the  strategy 
of  war... He  is  his  own  best  friend,  and  takes 
delight  in  privacy  whereas  the  man  of  no  virtue 


*3  6  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

or  ability  is  bis  own  worst  enemy,  and  is' afraid 
of  solitude.”  1 

Such  is  the  Superman  of  Aristotle. 


VIII.  POLITICS 

1.  COMMUNISM  AND  CONSERVATISM. 

To  so  aristocratic  an  ethic  there  naturally 
follows  (or  was  the  sequence  the  other  way?) 
a  severely  aristocratic  political  philosophy.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  tutor  of  an 
emperor  and  the  husband  of  a  princess  would 
have  any  exaggerated  attachment  to  the  com¬ 
mon  people,  or  even  to  the  mercantile  bour¬ 
geoisie;  our  philosophy  is  where  our  treasure 
lies.  But  further,  Aristotle  was  honestly  con¬ 
servative  because  of  the  turmoil  and  disaster 
that  had  come  out  of  Athenian  democracy;  like 
a  typical  scholar  he  longed  for  order,  se¬ 
curity,  and  peace;  this,  he  felt,  was  no  time  for 
political  extravaganzas.  Radicalism  is  a  luxury 
of  stability;  we  may  dare  to  change  things  only 
when  things  li©  steady  under  our  hands.  And 

yEthics,  iv,  3. 


67 


A  GUIL  E  TO  ARISTOTLE 
m  general,  says  Aristotle,  “the  habit  of  lightly 
changing  the  laws  is  an  evil;  and  when  the 
advantage  of  change  is  small,  some  defects 
whether  in  the  law  or  in  the  ruler  had  better 
be  met  with  philosophic  toleration.  The  citizen 
will  gain  less  by  the  change  than  he  will  lose 
by  acquiring  the  habit  of  disobedience.”1  The 
power  of  the  law  to  secure  observance,  and 
therefore  to  maintain  political  stability,  rests 
very  largely  on  custom;  and  to  pass  lightly 
from  old  laws  to  new  ones  is  a  certain  means 
of  weakening  the  inmost  essence  of  all  law 
whatever.”2  “Let  us  not  disregard  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  ages:  surely,  in  the  multitude  of 
years,  these  things,  if  they  were  good,  would 
not  have  remained  unknown.” 3 

“These  things,”  of  course,  means  chiefly 
Plato’s  communistic  republic.  Aristotle  fights 
the  realism  of  Plato  about  universals,  and  the 
idealism  of  Plato  about  government.  He  finds 
many  dark  spots  in  the  picture  painted  by  the 
Master.  He  does  not  relish  the  barrack-like 
continuity  of  contact  to  which  Plato  apparently 


i. Politics ,  ii,  8. 
zIbid,  v.  8. 
slbid.,*  ii,  i- 


68  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

condemned  his  guardian  philosophers;  conserv¬ 
ative  though  he  is,  Aristotle  values  individual 
quality,  privacy,  and  liberty  above  social  effi¬ 
ciency  and  power.  He  would  not  care  to  call 
every  contemporary  brother  or  sister,  nor  every 
elder  person  father  or  mother;  if  all  are  your 
brothers,  none  is;  and  “how  much  better  it  is  to 
be  the  real  cousin  of  somebody  than  to  be  a  son 
after  Plato’s  fashion!”1 *  In  a  state  having 
women  and  children  in  common,  “love  will  be 
watery... Of  the  two  qualities  which  chiefly 
inspire  regard  and  affection — that  a  thing  is 
your  own,  and  that  it  awakens  real  love  in  you 

— neither  can  exist  in  such  a  state”  as  Plato’s.3 

\ 

Perhaps  there  was,  in  the  dim  past,  a  com¬ 
munistic  society,  when  the  family  was  the  only 
state,  and  pasturage  or  simple  tillage  the  only 
form  of  life.  But  “in  a  more  divided  state  of 
society,”  where  the  division  of  labor  into  un¬ 
equally  important  fuhctions  elicits  and  en¬ 
larges  the  natural  inequality  of  men,  com¬ 
munism  breaks  down  because  it  provides  no 
adequate  incentive  for  the  exertion  of  superior 
abilities.  The  stimulus  of  gain  is  necessary  to 


lPolitics,  ii,  3. 

H bid.,  ii,  4, 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  69 

arduous  work;  and  the  stimulus  of  ownership 
is  necessary  to  proper  industry,  husbandry  and 
care.  When  everybody  owns  everything  no¬ 
body  will  take  care  of  anything.  “That  which 
is  common  to  the  greatest  number  has  the  least 
attention  bestowed  upon  it.  Everyone  thinks 
chiefly  of  his  own,  hardly  ever  of  the  public, 
interest.”*  1  And  “there  is  always  a  difficulty  in 
living  together,  or  having  things  in  common, 
but  especially  in  having  common  property.  The 
partnerships  of  fellow-travellers”  (to  say  noth, 
ing  of  the  arduous  communism  of  marriage), 
“are  an  example  to  the  point;  for  they  gen¬ 
erally  fall  out  by  the  way,  and  quarrel  about 
any  trifle  that  turns  up.”2 

“Men  readily  listen”  to  Utopias,  “and  are 
easily  induced  to  believe  that  in  some  wonder¬ 
ful  manner  everybody  will  become  everybody’s 
friend,  especially  when  some  one  is  heard  de¬ 
nouncing  the  evils  now  existing,. .  .which  are 
s^id  to  arise  out  of  the  possession  of  private 
property.  These  evils,  however,  arise  from 
quite  another  source— the  wickedness  of  human 


1 Politics ,  ii,  3. 

lIbid.,  ii,  5. 


70  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

nature.” 1  “Political  science  does  not  make 
men,  but  must  take  them  as  they  come  from 

nature.”  2 * 

And  human  nature,  the  human  average,  is 
nearer  to  the  beast  than  to  the  god.  The  great 
majority  of  men  are  natural  dunces  and  slug¬ 
gards;  in  any  system  whatever  these  men  will 
sink  to  the  bottom;  and  to  help  them  with  state 
subsidies  is  “like  pouring  water  into  a  leaking 
cask.”  Such  people  must  be  ruled  in  politics 
and  directed  in  industry;  with  their  consent 
if  possible,  without  it  if  necessary.  “From  the 
hour  of  their  birth  some  are  marked  out  for 
subjection,  and  others  for  command.” 8  “For  he 
who  can  foresee  with  his  mind  is  by  nature  in¬ 
tended  to  be  lord  and  master;  and  he  who  can 
work  only  with  his  body  is  by  nature  a  slave.” 4 * * * 

1Politics.  Note  that  conservatives  are  pessimists,  and 
radicals  are  optimists,  about  human  nature,  which  is  prob¬ 
ably  neither  so  good  nor  so  bad  as  they  would  like  to 
believe,  and  may  be  not  so  much  nature  as  early  training 
and  environment. 

2Ibid.,  i,  10. 

zIbid.,  i,  5. 

*Ibid.,  i,  2.  Perhaps  slave  is  too  harsh  a  rendering  of 

doulos;  the  word  was  merely  a  frank  recognition  of  a 

brutal  fact  which  in  our  day  is  perfumed  with  talk  about 

the  dignity  of  labor  and  the  brotherhood  of  man;  in 

nothing  do  we  so  far  surpass  the  ancients  as  in  making 
phrases. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 
The  slave  is  to  the  master  what  the  body  Is  to 
the  mind;  and  as  the  body  should  be  subject 
to  the  mind,  so  “it  is  better  for  all  inferiors 
that  they  should  be  under  the  rule  of  a  master. 
“The  slave  is  a  tool  with  life  in  it,  the  tool  is 
a  lifeless  slave.”  And  then  our  hard-hearted 
philosopher,  with  a  glimmer  of  possibilities 
which  the  Industrial  Revolution  has  opened  to 
our  hands,  writes  for  a  moment  with  wistful 
hope:  “If  every  instrument  would  accomplish 
its  own  work,  obeying  or  anticipating  the  will 
of  others,... if  the  shuttle  would  weave,  or  the 
plectrum  touch  the  lyre,  without  a  hand  to 
guide  them,  then  chief  workmen  would  not 
need  assistants,  nor  masters  slaves.” 1  2 

This  philosophy  typifies  the  Greek  disdain  for 
manual  labor.  Such  work  in  Athens  had  not 
become  so  complicated  as  it  is  today,  when  the 
intelligence  demanded  in  many  manual  trades 
is  at  times  much  greater  than  that  required 
for  the  operations  of  the  lower  middle  class,  and 
even  a  college  professor  may  look  upon  an 
automobile  mechanic  (in  certain  exigencies)  as 
a  very  god;  manual  work  was  then  merely 


1 Politics ,  i,  5. 

2Ibid.,  i,  4. 


72  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

manual,  and  Aristotle  looked  down  upon  it, 
from  the  heights  of  philosophy,  as  belonging  to 
men  without  minds,  as  only  fit  for  slaves,  and 
fitting  men  only  for  slavery.  Manual  labor, 
he  believes,  dulls  and  deteriorates  the  mind,  and 
leaves  neither  time  nor  energy  for  political  in¬ 
telligence;  it  seems  to  Aristotle  a  reasonable 
corollary  that  only  persons  of  some  leisure 
should  have  a  voice  in  government. 1  “The  best 
form  of  state  will  not  admit  mechanics  to 
citizenship. .  .At  Thebes  there  was  a  law  that 
no  man  could  hold  office  who  had  not  retired 
from  business  ten  years  before.”2  Even  mer¬ 
chants  and  financiers  are  classed  by  Aristotle 
among  slaves.  “Retail  trade  is  unnatural,... 
and  a  mode  by  which  men  gain  from  one  an¬ 
other.  The  most  hated  sort  of  such  exchange 
is... usury,  which  makes  a  gain  out  of  money 
itself,  and  not  from  its  natural  use.  For 
money  was  intended  as  an  instrument  of  ex¬ 
change,  and  as  the  mother  of  interest.  This 
usury  (tokos),  which  means  the  birth  of  money 
from  money,. . .  is  of  all  modes  of  gain  the  most 


1 Politics ,  iii,  3;  vii,  8. 

mid.,  iii,  5. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 
unnatural.” 1  Money  should  not  breed.  Hence 
“the  discussion  of  the  theory  of  finance  is  not 
unworthy  of  philosophy;  but  to  be  engaged  in 
finance,  or  in  money-making,  is  unworthy  of 
a  free  man.”2 


2.  MARRIAGE  AND  EDUCATION 

Woman  is  to  man  as  the  slave  to  the  master, 
the  manual  to  the  mental  worker,  the  bar¬ 
barian  to  the  Greek.  Woman  is  an  unfinished 
man,  left  standing  on  a  lower  step  in  the  scale 
of  development. 3  The  male  is  by  nature  su¬ 
perior,  and  the  female  inferior;  the  one  rules 
and  the  other  is  ruled;  and  this  principle  ex¬ 
tends,  of  necessity,  to  all  mankind.”  Woman 
is  weak  of  will,  and  therefore  incapable  of  in¬ 
dependence  of  character  or  position;  her  best 


l. Politics ,  i,  10.  This  view  influenced  the  medieval  pro¬ 
hibition  of  interest.  ...  ,  , 

2Ibid.  i,  11.  Aristotle  adds  that  philosophers  could 
succeed  in  such  fields  if  they  cared  to  descend  into 
them;  and  he  proudly  points  to  Thales,  who,,  foreseeing 
a  good  harvest,  bought  up  all  the  reapers  in  his  city,  and 
then,  at  harvest  time,  sold  them  at  his  own  sweet  price, 
whereupon  Aristotle  observes  that  the  universal  seciet  ox 
great  riches  is  the  creation  of  a  monopoly.  ... 

aDe  Gen.  Animalium,  ii,  3;  Hist.  Animahum,  vm,  1; 
Pol,  i,  5.  Cf.  Weininger;  and  Merediths  Woman  will 
be  the  last  thing  civilized  by  man”  ( Ordeal  of  Richard 
Fevcrel,  p.  1).  It  appears,  however,  that  man  was,  (or 
will  be)  the  last  thing  civilized  by  woman;  for  the  great 
civilizing  agencies  are  the  family  and  a  settled  economic 
life;  and  both  of  these  are  the  creations  of  woman. 


74  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

condition  is  a  quiet  home  life  in  which,  while 
ruled  by  the  man  in  her  external  relations,  she 
may  be  in  domestic  affairs  supreme.  Women 
should  not  be  made  more  like  men,  as  in 
Plato's  republic;  rather  the  dissimilarity  should 
be  increased;  nothing  is  so  attractive  as  the 
different.  “The  courage  of  a  man  and  that  of 
a  woman  are  not,  as  Socrates  supposed,  the 
same:  the  courage  of  a  man  is  shown  in  com¬ 
manding;  that  of  a  woman  in  obeying. .  .As  the 
poet  says,  ‘Silence  is  a  woman’s  glory.’  ” 1 
Aristotle  seems  to  suspect  that  this  ideal 
enslavement  of  woman  is  a  rare  achievement 
for  man,  and  that  as  often  as  not  the  sceptre 
is  with  the  tongue  rather  than  with  the  arm. 
As  if  to  give  the  male  an  indispensable  advan¬ 
tage,  he  advises  him  to  defer  marriage  till  the 
vicinity  of  thirty-seven,  and  then  to  marry  a 
lass  of  some  twenty  years.  A  girl  who  is 
rounding  the  twenties  is  usually  the  equal 
of  a-  man  of  thirty,  but  may  perhaps  be 
managed  by  a  seasoned  warrior  of  thirty- 

seven.  What  attracts  Aristotle  to  this  mat- 

« 

rimonial  mathematics  is  the  consideration 
that  two  such  disparate  persons  will  lose  their 


1 Politics .  i,  13. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  75' 

reproductive  power  and  passions  at  approxi¬ 
mately  the  same  time.  “If  the  man  is  still  able 
to  beget  children  while  the  woman  is  unable 
to  bear  them,  or  vice  versa ,  quarrels  and  dif¬ 
ferences  will  arise.  .  .  .  Since  the  time  of 
generation  is  commonly  limited  within  the  age 
of  seventy  years  in  the  man,  and  fifty  in  the 
woman,  the  commencement  of  their  union 
should  conform  to  these  periods.  The  union 
of  male  and  female  when  too  young  is  bad  for 
the  creation  of  children;  in  all  animals  the  off¬ 
spring  of  the  young  are  small  and  ill-developed, 
and  generally  female.”  ?  Health  is  more  im¬ 
portant  than  love.  Further,  “it  conduces  to 
temperance  not  too  marry  too  soon;  for  women 
who  marry  early  are  apt  to  be  wanton;  and 
in  men  too  the  bodily  frame  is.  stunted  if  they 
marry  while  they  are  growing.”1  These  matters 
should  not  be  left  to  youthful  caprice,  they 
should  be  under  state  supervision  and  control: 
the  state  should  determine  the  minimum  and 
maximum  ages  of  marriages  for  each  sex,  the 
best  seasons  for  conception,  and  the  rate  of 
increase  in  population.  If  the  natural  rate  of 

1 Politics ,  vii,  16.  It  is  apparent  that  Aristotle  has  in  mind 
only  the  temperance  of  women;  the  moral  effect  of  de¬ 
ferred  marriage  upon  men  does  not  seem  to  agnate  him. 


76  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

increase  is  too  high,  the  cruel  practice  of  in¬ 
fanticide  may  be  replaced  by  abortion;  and  ‘‘let 
abortion  be  procured  before  sense  and  life  have 
begun.”  1  There  is  an  ideal  number  of  population 
for  every  state,  varying  with  its  position  and 
resources.  “A  state  when  composed  of  too  few 
is  not,  as  a  state  should  be,  self-sufficing;  while 
if  it  has  too  many  ....  it  becomes  a  nation 
and  not  a  state,  and  is  almost  incapable  of 
constitutional  government,” 2  or  of  ethnic  or 
political  unity.  Probably  anything  in  excess  of 
a  population  of  10,000  is  undesirable. 

Education,  too,  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the 

state.  ‘‘That  which  most  contributes  to  the 

permanence  of  constitutions  is  the  adaptation 

* 

of  education  to  the  form  of  government.  .  .  The 
citizen  should  ,  be  moulded  to  the  form  of 
government  under  which  he  lives.”3  By  state 
control  of  schools  we  might  divert  men  from 
industry  and  trade  to  agriculture;  and  we  might 
train  men,  while  keeping  property  private,  to 
open  their  possessions  to  discriminately  com¬ 
mon  use.  “Among  good  men,  with  respect  to 
the  use  of  property,  the  proverb  will  hold,  that 


1 Politics . 

*Ibid.,  vii,  4. 

zIbid.t  v.  9;  viii,  1.. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  77 

‘friends  should  have  all  things  in  common.’  ” 1 
But  above  all  the  growing  citizen  must  be 
taught  obedience  to  law,  else  a  state  is  impos¬ 
sible.  “It  has  been  well  said  that  ‘he  who  has 
never  learned  to  obey  cannot  be  a  good  com¬ 
mander.’  .  .  .  The  good  citizen  should  be  cap- 
1  able  of  both.”  And  only  a  state  system  of 
schools  can  achieve  social  unity  amid  ethnic 
heterogeneity;  the  state  is  a  plurality  which 
must  be  made  into  a  unity  and  a  community  by 
education.2  Let  youth  be  taught,  too,  the 
great  boon  it  has  in  the  state,  the  unappreciated 
security  which  comes  of  social  organization,  the 
freedom  that  comes  of  law.  “Man,  when  per¬ 
fected,  is  the  best  of  animals;  but  when 
isolated  he  is  the  worst  of  all;  for  injustice  is 
more  dangerous  when  armed,  and  man  is 
equipped  at  birth  with  the  weapon  of  intelli* 
gence,  and  with  qualities  of  character  ,  which 
he  may  use  for  the  vilest  ends.  Wherefore  if 
he  have  not  virtue  he  is  the  most  unholy  and 
savage  of  animals,  full  of  gluttony  and  lust.” 
And  only  social  control  can  give  him  virtue. 
Through  speech  man  evolved  society;  through 


1 Politics ,  vi,  4;  ii,  5. 

aIbid.,  iii,  4;  ii,  5. 


78  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

•ociety,  Intelligence;  through  intelligence, 
order;  and  through  order,  civilization.  In  such 
an  ordered  state  the  individual  has  a  thousand 
opportunities  and  avenues  of  development  open 
to  him  which  a  solitary  life  would  never  give. 
“To  live  alone,”  then,  “one  must  he  either  an 
animal  or  a  god.”1 

Hence  revolution  is  almost  always  unwise;  it 
may  achieve  some  good,  but  at  the  cost  of 
many  evils,  the  chief  of  which  is  the  disturb¬ 
ance,  and  perhaps  the  dissolution,  of  that  social 
order  and  structure  on  which  every  political 
good  depends.  The  direct  consequences  of 
revolutionary  innovations  may  be  calculable 
and  salutary;  but  the  indirect  are  generally 
incalculable,  and  not  seldom  disastrous.  “They 
who  take  only  a  few  points  into  account  find  it 
easy  to  pronounce  judgment;”  and  a  man  can 
make  up  his  mind  quickly  if  he  has  only  a  little 
to  make  up.  “Young  men  are  easily  deceived, 
for  they  are  quick  to  ho$e.”  The  suppression 
of  long-established  habits  brings  the  overthrow 
of  innovating  governments  because  'the  old 


1 Politics ,  i,  2.  “Or,”  adds  Nietzsche,  who  takes  nearly 

all  of  his  political  philosophy  from  Aristotle,  “one  must 
be  both — that  is,  a  philosopher.” 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  '  79 

habits  persist  among  the  people;  characters  are 
not  as  easily  changed  as  laws.  If  a  consti¬ 
tution  is  to  be  permanent,  all  the  parts  of  a 
society  must  desire  it  to  be  maintained.  There¬ 
fore  a  ruler  who  would  avoid  revolution  should 
prevent  extremes  of  poverty  and  wealth, — “a 
condition  which  is  most  often  the  result  of 
war;”  he  should  (like  j^ie  English)  encourage 
colonization  as  an  outlet  for  a  dangerously  con¬ 
gested  population;  and  he  should  foster  and 
practice  religion.  An  autocratic  ruler  particu¬ 
larly  “should  appear  to  be  earnest  in  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  the  gods;  for  if  men  think  that  a  ruler 
is  religious  and  reveres  the  gods,  they  are 
less  afraid  of  suffering  injustice  at  his  hands, 
and  are  less  disposed  to  conspire  against  him, 
since  they  believe  that  the  gods  themselves  are 
fighting  on  his  side.” 1 

3.  DEMOCRACY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

With  such  safeguards  in  religion,  in  education, 
and  in  the  ordering  of  family  life,  almost  any 
of  the  traditional  forms  of  government  will 
serve.  All  forms  have  good  and  bad  com¬ 
mingled  in  them,  and  are  severally  adapted  to 


Politics,  iv,  5;  ii,  9;  v,  7;  ii,  11. 


80  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

various  conditions.  Theoretically,  the  ideal 
form  of  government  would  be  the  centralization 
of  all  political  power  in  the  one  best  man. 
Homer  is  right:  “Bad  is  the  lordship  of  many; 
let  one  be  your  ruler  and  master.”  For  such  a 
man  law  would  be  rather  an  instrument  than 
a  limit:  “for  men  of  eminent  ability  there  is 
no  law — they  are  themselves  a  law.  Anyone 
would  be  ridiculous  Who  should  attempt  to 
make  laws  for  them;  they  would  probably  re¬ 
tort  what,  in  the  fable  of  Antisthenes,  the  lions 
said  to  the  hares  when,  in  the  council  of  beasts, 
the  latter  began  hai  mguing  and  claiming 
©quality  for  all — “Whei  e  are  your  claws?”1 

But  in  practice,  monarchy  is  usually  the 
worst  form  of  government,  for  great  strength 
and  great  virtue  are  not  near  allied.  Hence 
the  best  practicable  polity  is  aristocracy,  the 
rule  of  the  informed  and  capable  few.  Govern¬ 
ment  is  too  complex  a  thing  to  have  its  issues 
decided  by  number,  when  lesser  issues  are  re¬ 
served  for  knowledge  and  ability.  “As  th® 


1 Politics ,  Hi,  13.  Aristotle  probably  bad  Alexander  or 
Philip  in  mind  while  writing  this  passage,  just  a» 
Nietzsche  seems  to  have  been  influenced  towards  similar 
conclusions  by  the  alluring  career  of  Napoleon. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  81 

physician  ought  to  be  judged  by  the  physician, 
so  ought  men  in  general  to  be  judged  by  their 
peers.  .  .  Now  does  not  this  same  principle 
apply  to  elections?  For  a  right  election  can 
only  be  made  by  those  who  have  knowledge:  a 
geometrician,  e.g.,  will  choose  rightly  in  mat¬ 
ters  of  geometry;  or  a  pilot  in  matters  of 
navigation.  .  }  So  that  neither  the  election 
of  magistrates  nor  the  calling  of  them  to  ac¬ 
count  should  be  entrusted  to  the  many.” 

The  difficulty  with  hereditary  aristocracy  is 
that  it  has  no  permanent  economic  base;  the 
eternal  recurrence  of  the  nouveaux  riches  puts 
political  office  sooner  or  later  at  the  disposal 
of  the  highest  bidder.  “It  is  surely  a  bad  thing 
that  the  greatest  offices  .  .  .  should  be  bought. 
The  law  which  permits  this  abuse  makes  wealth 
of  more  account  than  ability,  and  the  whole 
state  becomes  avaricious.  For  whenever  the 
chiefs  of  the  state  deem  anything  honorable, 

the  other  citizens  are  sure  to  follow  their  ex¬ 
ample”  (the  “prestige  imitation”  of  modern 
social  psychology) ;  “and  where  ability  has  not  - 
the  first  place  there  is  no  real  aristocracy”1 2 

1 Politics ,  iii,  11.  Cf.  the  modern  argument  for  “occupa¬ 
tional  representation.” 

*Ibid.,  ii,  11. 


81  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

Democracy  is  usually  the  result  of  a  revolu¬ 
tion  against  plutocracy.  “Love  of  gain  in  the 
ruling  classes  tends  constantly  to  diminish 
their  number”  (Marx's  “elimination  of  the  mid¬ 
dle  class”),  “and  so  to  strengthen  the  masses, 
who  in  the  end  set  upon  their  masters  and 
establish  democracies.”  This  “rule  by  the  poor” 
has  some  advantages.  “The  people,  though  in¬ 
dividually  they  may  be  worse  judges  than  those 
who  have  special  knowledge,  are  collectively  as 
good.  Moreover,  there  are  some  artists  whose 
works  are  best  judged  not  by  themselves  alone, 
but  by  those  who  do  not  possess  the  art;  e.g., 
the  user  or  master  of  a  house  will  be  a. better 
judge  of  it  than  the  builder;  .  .  .  and  the  guest 
will  be  a  better  judge  of  a  feast  than  the  cook.”1 
And  “the  many  are  more  incorruptible  than  the 
few;  they  are  like  the  greater  quantity  of  water 
which  is  less  easily  spoiled  than  a  little.  The 
individual  is  liable  to  be  overcome  by  anger,  or 
by  some  other  passion,  and  then  his  judgment 


1Politics,  iii,  15,  8,  11.  In  these  passages  we  have  a  fair 
outline  of  a  desirable  amendment  to  democracy:  adminis¬ 
tration  by  experts  democratically  chosen  by  occupational 
ballot,  and  pursuing  ends  determined  by  the  whole  com¬ 
munity. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  83 

is  necessarily  perverted;  but  it  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  a  great  number  of  persons  would 
all  get  into  a  passion  and  go  wrong  at  the 
same  moment.”  1 

Yet  democracy  is  on  the  whole  inferior  to 
aristocracy.2  For  it  is  based  on  a  false  assump¬ 
tion  of  equality;  it  “arises  out  of  the  notion 
that  those  who  are  equal  in  one  respect  (e.g., 
in  respect  of  the  law)  are  equal  in  all  respects; 
because  men  are  equally  free  they  claim  to  be 
absolutely  equal.”  The  upshot  is  that  ability  is 
sacrificed  to  number,  while  numbers  are 
manipulated  by  trickery.  Because  the  people 
are  so  easily  misled,  and  so  fickle  in  their 
views,  the  ballot  should  be  limited  to  the  in¬ 
telligent.  What  ,we  need  is  a  combination  of 
aristocracy  and  democracy. 

Constitutional  government  offers  this  happy 
union.  It  is  not  the  best  conceivable  govern¬ 
ment — that  would  be  an  aristocracy  of  educa- 


1Politics,  iii,  15.  Tarde,  Le  Bon  and  other  social  psy¬ 
chologists  assert  precisely  the  contrary;  and  though  they 
exaggerate  the  vices  of  the  crowd,  they  might  find  better 
support  than  Aristotle  in  the  behavior  of  the  Athenian 
Assembly  430-330  B.  C. 

2Ibid w  ii,  9. 


84  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

tion — but  it  is  the  best  possible  state.  “We 
must  ask  what  is  the  best  constitution  for  most 
states,  and  the  best  life  for  most  men;  neither 
assuming  a  standard  of  excellence  which  will 
be  above  ordinary  persons,  nor  an  education 
exceptionally  favored  by  nature  or  circum¬ 
stance,  nor  yet  an  ideal  state  which  will  be 
only  an  aspiration;  but  having  in  mind  such  a 
life  as  the  majority  will  be  able  to  share,  and  a 
form  of  government  to  which  states  in  general 
can  attain.”  “It  is  necessary  to  begin  by  as¬ 
suming  -a  principle  of  general  application, 
namely,  that  that  part  of  the  state  which  de¬ 
sires  the  continuance  of  the  government  must 
be  stronger  than  that  which  does  not;”1  and 
strength  consists  neither  in  number  alone,  nor 
in  property  alone,  nor  in  military  or  political 
ability  alone,  but  in  a  combination  of  these,  so 
that  regard  has  to  be  taken  of  “freedom,  wealth, 
culture  and  noble  birth,  as  well  as  of  mere 
numerical  superiority.”  Now  where  shall  we 
find  such  an  economic  majority  to  support  our 
constitutional  government?  Perhaps  best  in 
the  middle  class:  here  again  we  have  the  golden 


*, Politics ,  iv,  11,  10. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  85 

mean,  just  as  constitutional  government  itself 
would  be  a  mean  between  democracy  and 
aristocracy.  Our  state  will  be  sufficiently 
democratic  if  the  road  to  every  office  is  open 
to  all;  and  sufficiently  aristocratic  if  the 
offices  themselves  are  closed  except  to  those 
who  have  traveled  the  road  and  arrived  fully 
prepared.  From  whatever  angle  we  approach 
our  eternal  political  problem  we  monotonously 
reach  the  same  conclusion:  that  the  community 
should  determine  the  ends  to  be  pursued,  but 
that  only  experts  should  select  and  apply  the 
means;  that  choice  should  be  democratically 
spread,  but  that  office  should  be  rigidly  re¬ 
served  for  the  equipped  and  winnowed  best. 

IX.  CRITICISM 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  philosophy?  Per¬ 
haps  nothing  rapturous.  It  is  difficult  to  be 
enthusiastic  about  Aristotle,  because  it  was  dif¬ 
ficult  for  him  to  be  enthusiastic  about  any¬ 
thing;  and  si  vis  me  flere,  primum  tibi 


86  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

flendum. 1  His  motto  is  nil  admirari — to  admire 
or  marvel  at  nothing;  and  we  hesitate  to  violate 
his  motto  in  his  case.  We  miss  in  him  the 
reforming  zeal  of  Plato,  the  angry  love  of 
humanity  which  made  the  great  idealist  de¬ 
nounce  his  fellow-men.  We  miss  the  daring 
originality  of  his  teacher,  the  lofty  imagination, 
the  capacity  for  generous  delusion.  And  yet, 
after  reading  Plato,  nothing  could  be  so  salu¬ 
tary  for  us  as  Aristotle's  sceptic  calm. 

fyet  us  summarize  our  disagreement.  We  are 
bothered,  at  the  outset,  with  his  insistence  on 
logic.  We  want  him  to  describe  his  ideal,  and 
he  describes  a  perfect  syllogism;  not  content 
with  that  he  makes  his  syllogism  judge  of  our 
ideals.  He  thinks  the  syllogism  a  description 
of  man’s  way  of  reasoning,  whereas  it  merely 
describes  man’s  way  of  dressing  up  his  reason¬ 
ing  for  the  persuasion  of  another  mind;  he  sup¬ 
poses  that. thought  begins  with  premisses  and 
seeks  their  conclusions,  when  actually  thought 
begins  with  hypothetical  conclusions  and  seeks 
their  justifying  premisses, — and  seeks  them  best 
by  the  observation  of  particular  events  und^r 


.  1<4If  you  wish  me  to  weep  you  must  weep  first” — 

Horace  ( Ars  Poetica )  to  actors  and  writers. 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  87 

the  controlled  and  isolated  conditions  of  ex¬ 
periment.  Yet  how  foolish  we  should  be  to 
forget  that  two  thousand  years  have  changed 
merely  the  incidentals  of  Aristotle’s  logic,  that 
Occam  and  Bacon  and  Whewell  and  Mill  and  a 
hundred  others  have  but  found  spots  in  his  sun, 
and  that  Aristotle’s  creation  of  this  new  dis¬ 
cipline  of  thought,  and  his  firm  establishment 
of  its  essential  lines,  remain  among  the  lasting 
achievements  of  the  human  mind. 

It  is  again  the  absence  of  experiment  and 
fruitful  hypothesis  that  leaves  Aristotle’s 
natural  science  a  mass  of  undigested  observa¬ 
tions.  His  specialty  is  the  collection  and  classi¬ 
fication  of  data;  in  every  field  he  wields  his 
categories  and  produces  catalogues.  But  side 
by  side  with  this  bent  and  talent  for  observation 
goes  a  Platonic  addiction  to  metaphysics;  this 
trips  him  up  in  every  science,  and  inveigles  him 
into  the  wildest  presuppositions.  Here  indeed 
was  the  great  defect  of  the  Greek  mind:  it  was 
not  disciplined;  it  lacked  limiting  and  steady¬ 
ing  traditions;  it  moved  freely  in  an  uncharted 
field,  and  ran  too  readily  to  theories  and  con¬ 
clusions.  So  Greek  philosophy  leaped  on  to 
heights  yet  unreached  again,  while  Greek 


38  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

science  limped  behind.  Our  modern  danger  is 
precisely  opposite;  inductive  data  fall  upon  us 
from  all  sides  like  the  lava  of  Vesuvius;  we 
suffocate  with  uncoordinated  facts;  our  minds 
are  overwhelmed  with  sciences  breeding  and 
multiplying  into  specialistic  chaos  for  want  of 
synthetic  thought  and  a  unifying  philosophy. 
We  are  all  mere  fragments  of  what  a  man 
might  be. 

Aristotle’s  ethics  is  a  branch  of  his  logic:  the 
ideal  life  is  like  a  proper  syllogism.  He  gives 
us  a  handbook  of  propriety  rather  than  a 
stimulus  to  improvement.  ,  An  ancient  critic 
spoke  of  him  as  “moderate  to  “excess.”  An 
extremist  might  call  the  Ethics  the  champion 
collection  of  platitudes  in  all  literature;  and  an 
Anglophobe  would  be  consoled  with  the  thought 
that  Englishmen  in  their  youth  had  done  ad¬ 
vance  penance  for  the  imperialistic  sins  of  their 
adult  years,  since  both  at  Cambridge  and  at 
Oxford  they  had  been  compelled  to  read  every 
word  of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics.  One  longs  to 
mingle  fresh  green  Leaves  of  Grass  with  these 
drier  -  pages,  to  add  Whitman’s  exhilarating 
justification  of  sense  joy  to  Aristotle’s  exaltation 
of  a  purely  intellectual  happiness.  One  won- 


89 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 
ders  if  this  Aristotelian  ideal  of  immoderate 
moderation  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
colorless  virtue,  the  starched  perfection,  the  ex¬ 
pressionless  good  form,  of  the  British  aristoc¬ 
racy.  Matthew  Arnold  tells  us  that  in  his 
time  Oxford  tutors  looked  upon  the  Ethics  as 
infallible.  For  three  hundred  years  this  book 
and  the  Politics  have  formed  the  ruling  British 
mind,  perhaps  to  great  and  noble  achievements, 
but  certainly  to  a  hard  and  cold  efficiency:  one 
wonders  what  the  result  would  have  been  if  the 
masters  of  the  greatest  of  empires  had  been 
nurtured,  instead,  on  the  holy  fervor  and  the 
constructive  passion  of  the  Republic. 

After  all,  Aristotle  was  not  quite  Greek;  he 
had  been  settled  and  formed  before  coming  to 
Athens;  there  was  nothing  Athenian  about  him,, 
nothing  of  the  hasty  and  inspiriting  experi- 
mentalism  which  made  Athens  throb  with 
political  6lan  and  at  last  helped  to  subject  her 
to  a  unifying  despot.  He  realized  too  com¬ 
pletely  the  Delphic  command  to  avoid  excess: 
he  is  so  anxious  to  pare  away  extremes  that  at 
last  nothing  is  left.  He  is  so  fearful  of  dis¬ 
order  that  he  forgets  to  be  fearful  of  slavery; 
he  is  so  timid  of  uncertain  change  that  he  pre- 


90  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

fers  a  certain  changelessness  that  near  r« 
sembles  death.  He  lacks  that  Heraclitean  sens 
of  flux  which  justifies  the  conservative  in  b< 
lieving  that  all  permanent  change  is  gradua 
but  justifies  the  radical  in  believing  that  n 
changelessness  is  permanent.  He  forgets  th£ 
Plato’s  communism  was  meant  only  for  tb 
elite,  the  unselfish  and  ungreedy  few;  and  b 
comes  deviously  to  a  Platonic  result  when  l 
says  that  though  property  should  be  private  ii 
use  should  be  as  far  as  possible  common.  H 
does  not  see  (and  perhaps  he  could  not  t 
expected  in  his  early  day  to  see)  that  pr 
vate  control  of  the  means  of  production  W£ 
stimulating  and  salutary  only  when  thej 
means  were  so  simple  as  to  be  purchasab 
by  any  man;  and  that  their  increasing  cor 
plexity  and  cost  lead  to  a  dangerous  centraliz 
tion  of  ownership  and  power,  and  to  an  art 
ficial  and  finally  disruptive  inequality. 

But  after  all,  these  are  quite  inessenti; 
criticisms  of  what  remains  the  most  marveloi 
and  influential  system  of  thought  ever  put  t 
gether  by  any  single  mind.  It  may  be  doubte 
if  any  other  thinker  has  contributed  so  muc 
to  the  enlightenment  of  the  world.  Ever 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE  91 

later  age  has  dra\yn  upon  Aristotle,  and  stood 
upon  his  shoulders  to  see  the  truth.  The  varied 
and  magnificent  culture  of  Alexandria  found  its 

scientific  inspiration  in  him.  His  Organon 

_ __  ♦ 

flayed  a  central  role  in  shaping  the  minds  of 
the  medieval  barbarians  into  disciplined  and 
consistent  thought.  The  other  works,  trans¬ 
lated  by  Nestorian  Christians  into  Syriac  in  the 
fifth  century  A.  D.,  and  thence  into  Arabic  and 
Hebrew  in  the  tenth  century,  and  thence  into 
Latin  towards  1225,  turned  scholasticism  from 
its  eloquent  beginnings  in  Abelard  to  encyclo¬ 
pedic  completion  in  Thomas  Aquinas  (1227- 
1274).  The  Crusaders  brought  back  more  ac¬ 
curate  Greek  copies  of  the  philosopher’s  texts; 
and  the  Greek  scholars  of  Constantinople 
brought  further  Aristotelian  treasures  with 
them  when,  after  1453,  they  fled  from  the  be- 
sieging.Turks.  The  works  of  Aristotle  came  to 
be  for  European  philosophy  what  the  Bible  was 
for  theology — an  almost  infallible  text,  with 
solutions  for  every  problem.  In  1215  the  Papal 
legate  at  Paris  forbade  teachers  to  lecture  on 
his  works;  in  1231  Gregory  IX  appointed  k 
commission  to  expurgate  him;  by  1260  he  was 
de  rigueur  in  every  Christian  school,  and 


92  A  GUIDE  TO  ARIST'QTLE 

ecclesiastical  assemblies  penalized  deviatic's 
from  his  views.  Chaucer  describes  his  student 
as  happy  by  kaving 

At  his  beddes  hed 

Twenty  bookes  clothed  in  blake  or  red  , 

Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophic;1 

and  in  the  first  circles  of  Hell,  says  Dante, 

“I  saw  the  Master  there  of  those  who  know. 
Amid  the  philosophic  family, 

By  all  admired,  and  by  all  reverenced; 

There  Plato  too  I  saw,  and  Socrates, 

Who  stood  beside  him  closer  than  the  rest.* 

Such  lines  give  us  some  inkling  of  the  honor 
which  a  thousand  years  offered  to  the  Stagirite.. 
Not  till  new  instruments,  accumulated  observa¬ 
tions,  and  patient  experiments  remade  science 
and  gave  irresistible  weapons  to  Occam  and 
Ramus,  to  Roger  and  Francis  Bacon,  was  the 
reign  of  Aristotle  ended.  No  other  mind  had 
for  so  long  a  time  ruled  the  intellect  of  man¬ 
kind. 

1Quoted  by  Benn,  i,  276.  \ 

s Inferno ,  iv,  131f. 


93 


f 


A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 


X.  LATER  LIFE  AND  DEATH 

Meanwhile  life  had  become  unmanageably 
complicated  for  our  philosopher.  He  found  him¬ 
self  on  the  one  hand  embroiled  with  Alexander 
for  protesting  against  the  execution  of  Cal-j 
listhenes  (a  nephew  of  Aristotle),  who  had  re{ 
fused  to  worship  Alexander  as  a  god;  and) 
Alexander  had  answered  the  protest  by  hinting! 
that  it  was  quite  within  his  omnipotence  to 
put  even  philosophers  to  death.  At  the  same 
time  Aristotle  was  busy  defending  Alexander 
among  the  Athenians.  He  preferred  Greek 
solidarity  to  city  patriotism,  and  thought  cul¬ 
ture  and  science  would  flourish  better  when 
petty  sovereignties  and  disputes  were  ended; 
and  he  saw  in  Alexander  what  Goethe  was  to 
see  in  Napoleon — the  philosophic  unity  of  a 
chaotic  and  intolerably  manifold  world.  The 
Athenians,  hungering  for  liberty,  growled  at 
Aristotle,  and  became  bitter  when  Alexander 
had  a  statue  of  the  philosopher  put  up  in  the 
heart  of  the  hostile  city.  In  this  turmoil  we  get 
an  impression  of  Aristotle  quite  contrary  to 
that  left  upon  us  by  his  Ethics :  here  is  a  man 


94  A  GUIDE  TO  ARISTOTLE 

not  cold  and  inhumanly  calm,  but  a  fighter, 
pursuing  his  Titanic  work  in  a  circle  of  enemies 
on  every  side.  The  successors  of  Plato  at  the 
Academy,  the  oratorical  school  of  Isocrates, 
and  the  angry  crowds  that  hung  on  Demos¬ 
thenes’  acid  eloquence,  intrigued  and  clamored 
ior  his  exile  or  his  death. 

I  And  then,  suddenly  (323  B.  C.),  Alexander 
tied.  Athens  went  wild  with  patriotic  joy; 
Ihe  Macedonian  party  was  overthrown,  and 
[Athenian  independence  was  proclaimed.  An¬ 
tipater,  successor  of  Alexander  and  intimate 
friend  of  Aristotle,  marched  upon  the  rebellious 
city.  Most  of  the  Macedonian  party  fled. 
Eurymedon,  a  chief  priest,  brought  in  an  indict¬ 
ment  against  Aristotle,  charging  him  with 
having  taught  that  prayer  and  sacrifice  were 

of  no  avail.  Aristotle  saw  himself  fated  to  be 

, 

tried  by  juries  and  crowds  incomparably  more 
hostile  than  those  that  had  murdered  Socrates. 
Very  wisely,  he  left  the  city,  saying  that  he 
would  not  give  Athens  a  chance  to  sin  a  second 
time  against  philosophy.  There  was  no 
cowardice  in  this;  an  accused  person  at  Athens 
had  always  the  option  of  preferring  exile.1 


xGrote,  20. 


